Child benefit leaks: your views

Updated on 21 November 2007

By Channel 4 News

What you had to say about the child benefit data loss.

Most of you seemed to be in shock over the revelations: "This is devastating news for millions of Britons. My real concern is that my identity, and that of my daughter, will now be used by organised criminal gangs.

"The personal information on the child benefit forms are so detailed that in the wrong hands, will be a very easy way to duplicate identities as well as other crime such as benefit fraud."

And another concerned parent voices concern: "As a concerned parent I find it just completely staggering that the government can so casually treat confidential data on me, my daughter and my wife as if it were a telephone directory."

Not the first time...

But many of you wrote into point out this is not the first time your privacy has been breached by hapless postal methods.

One viewer wrote: "I received a letter from HMRC on the 31st October advising me that my Surname, National Insurance Number, date of birth and plan number had gone missing on a disc somewhere in transit between HMRC and Standard Life.

"According to the HMRC chief secretary on your programme this evening, this is one of the breaches that has been dealt with. My question is to whose satisfaction, certainly not mine...

"What I would like to know is what remedies / guarantees do we the public have in the event that this information does end up in the wrong hands? Not today, this week or even next month - our National insurance numbers are for life as is our dates of birth.

"I feel this will be forgotten by the government in a short while but remain a constant cause of concern and worry to many millions."

Another individual who has recently had their bank account hacked into wonders: "Is this connected to the discs going missing?"

Insiders view

We also had emails from individuals who worked for the HMRC who were, sadly, not at all surprised by the affair.

One correspondent confided: "I work for HMRC in a local tax office. Today's news did not surprise any of us whatsoever. Post, internal and external (including tax returns, cheques, etc.) goes missing ALL THE TIME, and security is atrocious."

They pointed to the financial management: "The financial waste that still prevails is sometimes quite staggering - they will spend millions on external 'consultants' (that's a lead if anything is) but clearly can't put in place a proper security system."

And indicated a civil service rife with frustration with inadequate management: "It is appalling and literally archaic, managerial incompetence is rife at all levels and morale is desperate - within ten years we quite simply may not actually have enough Civil Servants to run our tax system, and especially not anyone that has been there long enough and so therefore has the expertise."

Some helpline

Many of you complained about the helpline: "The Helpline is so busy that it obviously cannot cope with the number of phonecalls following the news. Instead of being able to 'hold' on the line, you get cut off!"

But as one employee told us: "Ringing the Child Benefit helpine will be no use - I can tell you now that the majority of people will spend three days trying to get through, as there is also a chronic shortage of staff within all HMRC call centres, simply because no one stays long once being there long enough to know that they should go elsewhere."

The questions you asked

"An excellent news item, well reported. However, you did not ask the question "why was this data being sent to the Audit Commission in the first place?"

"Can we sue the HM Revenue & Customs under the Data Protection Act 1984?"

"Are the personal details relating to ALL families since Child Benefit Allowances were first introduced, or this years records? My family stopped receiving Child Benefit more than 10 years ago. Are our records amongst the 25 million?"

"Why has the government not announced a million pound reward for the return of these disks? If they can "spend" £1000 for each tax payer to support a failed bank surely, if they were serious about this matter, they can afford 5p per tax payer to get our data back."

"Are they going to indemnify me against potential loss as a result fo identity theft? Are they going to stop banks opening new accounts until a solution can be found? How are they going to pretect the public?"
"Why did a junior member of revenue staff have access to this level of data?"

"I note that Mr Darling has announced to the house that 2 password protected discs have gone missing. Could one of your reporters please ask him if the actual file data on the discs are encrypted. This is far more secure than merely password protecting a data source... if the data is unencrypted it is an absolute scandal."

Scepticism

Although there were plenty of dire warnings in our inbox - "Do not foget that this government is planning to link EVERY database that carries any personal data. In this way, any loss of data could contain a person's whole life." - there was still some scepticism around.

As one viewer exclaimed: "Who do they think they are kidding! How do you get 25 million names, addresses etc on two discs? Even zipped it would take many more than two!"

And another further elaborates: "A CD holds about 700mb, and even if only 7.5 million people are affected, as reported by Sky (perhaps they mean 7.5 million records), that's only about 190 characters per record - barely enough to hold name, address, National Insurance number, date of birth, relationship, bank details, etc - even if it's compressed."