Is it the HMRC that are the Fraudsters?

I know that I’ve tried to make this blog have an Environmental slant, but today I just have to get this off my chest!

If you live in the UK, or indeed probably the rest of the world, you’d have had to have been hiding under a rock to have missed the great data loss.

Somehow, and no one really seems to know how, or at least are admitting to, Her Majesties Revenue & Customs have lost two disks containing 25 million peoples information. The list of data affects everyone who is claiming ‘child benefit’ or ‘working tax credit’ and was supposed to be an interdepartmental transfer. The information on these disks contains, NI numbers, Name (parents & childrens), Address, DOB, Partners details and Bank account details.

Now, the chances are, mine and my families details are on one of these disks, and this really pisses me off. Like everyone that uses the web we spend a lot of time trying to keep our information secure, especially when surfing, just to have some idiot let it out into the pubic domain.

But this just adds insult to injury, only two weeks ago I had a letter from our wonderful government telling me that I was was one of 15 million people who have opted out of SERPS with Standard Life, who have had our all our data on a disk which has been lost.

It seems to me that the chances of identity fraud are pretty high for anyone on any of these disk and that really concerns me!

Anyway, not a lot I can really do but thank you for letting me vent.

Tags: HMRC, fraud, data loss

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