The English Guy’s Personal Blog

Just several questions that I have to ask (and of course, have no-one to ask them TO).

What format is this database in that it can’t be manipulated simply and easily to give you a pared down version with just name and national insurance number?

The reason the news channels give is that the HMRC officials worried about extra ‘cost’ in generating the version to give the National Audit Office. I think that putting a dummy version of the database (say, 5 full entries) on Rentacoder and paying $250 would get you a script to give you the required finished database… Just because the Government pays a fat firm millions to handle data doesn’t mean they can’t contract out small stuff to people who actually need the money.

Fitting that the Telegraph’s article title is “Ministers ‘ignored data security warnings’“. They should get lessons on the critical nature of data security.

What evidence is there that the data has been stolen?

So far it just seems to have been misplaced or lost in the postal system (my, there’s a surprise…). I suppose that’s why we’re shutting down all these post offices across the UK, so we can upgrade the postal system so that mail doesn’t get ‘misplaced’.

David Cameron said this, written in a Times Online article:

“It’s all very well to say we’ll hold an inquiry, but the Government has had ten years to sort this out,” the Tory leader said. “I have to say if a junior official in an organisation can access so much information and send it not once, twice but three times – that is evidence of systemic failure.”

Mr Cameron, I doubt a senior official would sink to the depths of copying data onto a CD and mailing it, don’t you? Do -YOU- write your own correspondence, affix stamps to it all, and walk down to the post box to deliver it?