[Year 12 IT Apps] Data Security: UK govt apologises for losing data

[Geoff Moss]

Great story coming out of the UK today concerning the loss of data on 25 
MILLION Brits.

British Finance Minister Alistair Darling apologised "unreservedly" after 
admitting the government had lost the personal details of half of Britain's 
population.

Darling was forced to admit to parliament that the government's tax 
authority had lost data on 25 million people - potentially the largest data 
security lapse in British history and one which lays those 25 million people 
open to the risk of identity theft and bank fraud.

Government Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said he was shocked at 
the scale of the security breach. - ". . .they have broken the data 
protection law."

He also said his office had been issuing warnings about data protection to 
organisations for years.

"We've been all the time saying that the more you are collecting personal 
data, for understandable reasons, the more the risks increase and the more 
you must be aware of what can go wrong."

UK govt apologises for losing data

Wednesday Nov 21
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=102511

There will certainly more on this story as the days go by, particularly if 
the disks have fallen into the wrong hands.
This is interestig in light of talking to students about taking backup data 
off site - the risks that I, and I think most of us overlook, of data loss 
through the theft or loss of backup media outside of the workplace.

Geoff Moss
RMIT