Sky News is reporting that the chairman of HM Revenue and Customs, Paul Gray, has resigned. Sky News has said that 7.5 million tax records have been lost/stolen/accessed/compromised. The Chancellor Alistair Darling will be making a statement at 3.30pm.
Hopefully it will be his resignation.
Update: The word "breaches" has been used now suggesting that there has been more than one failure. Who wants to bet that they will argue that if we just had ID cards it would protect against such security breaches? This is on top of the 15,000 records lost by a courier the other week.
Update !!: The BBC has just reported the figure as 15 million and it's child benefit recipient confidential data. So that's my wife's bank details then. Idiots. Ministers have known for nearly two weeks and they're sure that they're not in the "wrong hands" but they don't know where they are. First rule of information security, if you don't know how badly you have been compromised then you assume the worst.
As Drudge would say.
Developing.....
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
15 million tax records stolen? Will Darling resign?
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21 comments:
Story is its Cap Gemini ...
Aspire (Aquiring Strategic Partners for the Inland Revenue)
www.uk.capgemini.com/aspire
Bunch of witless ****wits!
Why has the story broken today? Nothing of course to deflect attention from Northern Rock. Dizzy, am I getting as cynical as you?
Err Howard this involves the Chancellor as well. Hardly intelligent news management to divert one scandal with another, potentially must more impacting one. We're talking about 15 million peoples' bank details.
The incompetence of every department and every Minsiter - so aweso0me as to be unbelievable
Yep, Dizzy I see your point. I am just quizzled why this story has broken today as others are reporting that it has been known about for a week. Am I missing something?
Because of the resignation meaning that they have had to confirm it
This is Gordon Brown's mess. He created HMRC, which has been cursed with IT interoperability problems even in the days of the Inland Revenue.
15 Million child benefit = slightly less than 30 million parents. If we assume the rest are below or above child rearing stage of their lives we can make the rough assumption that all of the child benefit records have been lost.
Where these records encrypted for transmittion - if so how long will it take criminal IT organisations in South Asia to break the code. Will it be less than 28 days ?
In this case the minister who should resign is Gordon Brown who doubled up on the IT problems of the Inland Revenue and Customs by merging them.
( Declaration of interest: My family claims child benefit and even now criminal organisations may be getting my bank account and personal details added to their databases. )
So does anyone still think they've got nothing to fear with the introduction of ID cards?
Are there even 15 million children in the UK?
I assume it's not possible that HMRC have been holding onto personal information of people with grown up children unnecessarily...
Senor Curly
Language !!!
We all understand the provokation & flustration
But however, eloquently put, with such economy of expression -
Ladies, Children & Junior Eagles read this Blogge Excellentissimo !!!
AND, Kinglear
Don't you have to admire the Competence of those who are seised of these records
Wouldn't it be cost-effective to pay them sheds of money, in order to run the NHS with similar effectiveness - perhaps they ought to run the Revenue as well - they could perhaps make sense of the Tax Credit system
Yr obedient servant etc
G Eagle
Because of the resignation meaning that they have had to confirm it...
On the ball as usual, Dizzy. Yet another scandal forced out into the open.
25 million individuals.
One thing that people don't seem to have noticed, either here or at Dale's blog:
It was Gordon who, as Chancellor, moved what was then the Inland Revenue into the same building as the Treasury, so that he could control more closely what was going on there. Previously, the Revenue had had an arm's length relationship with the Treasury; after the move, they were much more subject to the whims of this useless government.
What are the odds that a more independent Revenue would have avoided this mother of all cock-ups? Pretty high, I think.
My humblest apologies go to Mr. Eagle (now, it's time to check the bank account!)
This really is a rope and lampposts day. If they can't be trusted to do the jobs they asked for our trust to do it's time to get rid of them.
Anyone got a pitchfork cause I have a torch.
Can't believe I'm doing this, but, if Gray has indeed breeched information security guidelines - i.e. not posting stuff you shouldn't - Darling doesn't really need to resign.
If however it turns out that he knew something, off with his head.
Newsnight has just reported that the data wasn't encrypted - just password protected. I'm guessing they zipped the file.
The underlying failure is the ability to make the copy in the first place and attention is moving towards Gordon's restructuring of HMRC and the recent job cuts.
Perhaps the Government should be offering a reward for the finding the disks.
Dear Curly
Vorry nicht - you wrote it .... but we were all thinking it !!!
Best Wishes
G Eagle
This government is now finished, lost trust way beyond that which they lost from the interested minority, they've now lost Vicky Pollard.
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