UK government loses personal information of 25 million people

The database contains details of all families in the UK who receive Child Benefit - all families with children up to 16 years of age, and up to 20 years old if they are in full-time education or training, estimated to contain 25 million individuals in 7.25 million families. Among other items of information, the database contains names, addresses, dates of birth, child benefit and National Insurance numbers, and where appropriate, bank account details.

The discs were created by a junior official at the HMRC in response to a request for information by the NAO, and were sent unregistered and unrecorded in the departments' internal mail system on 8 October. HMRC were not informed that the discs had not arrived for audit until 8 November, and Darling himself was informed on 10 November. The violation of data protection laws involved in the creation of the discs has lead to strong attacks on the government's competence to create the proposed National Identity Register, when all UK residents will have an identity card. Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne described the loss of data as "catastrophic" and said "They [the government] simply cannot be trusted with people's personal information".

The Chairman of HMRC, Paul Gray, has resigned over the affair, and critics are calling for Darling to do likewise. - Source: wikinews.org