British Data Loss Scandal Deepens

The Telegraph is reporting that British ministers and officials ignored repeated warnings about serious flaws in data security in the years leading up to the newest loss of personal data of 25 million Britons - including those of every, single child in the country. By the time this is over, some careers will en in disgrace and the government itself may fall. Because Gordon Brown was one of th people who was warned about the problems, while he was still the Chancellor.

Gordon Brown has been dragged into the centre of the lost personal data crisis after it emerged that ministers ignored a series of warnings that security procedures in Government departments urgently needed to be reviewed.

During his time as Chancellor, the Treasury and other departments were told repeatedly that slack practices among officials created a serious risk of confidential information falling into the wrong hands.

Only a few weeks ago, the Government insisted the current enforcement regime for data protection was "fit for purpose" - despite a Lords committee warning over the summer that steps needed to be taken to improve it.

As the scandal over the loss of 25 million personal records escalated, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, was accused of misleading parliament by saying a "junior official" at HM Revenue and Customs was to blame for the loss of the data, whereas email evidence shows he was told two senior managers had authorised the procedure.

He was also said to have misled MPs over the reason he delayed announcing the loss of the child benefit records for 10 days.

Details on the severity of the problems are emerging that make this look much, much worse than initial reports - and those were pretty horrible. There have been more than 2,000 security breaches in just the past year. A report from 2003 warned of the security problems and strongly recommended data encryption for all records. Brown himself appears to have ignored that recommendation. Obviously, the Tories are going berserk over this and Labor has been knocked back on its collective heels. Britons are furious about this. Adding insult to injury, a government help line set up to answer questions about the fiasco turns out to be a toll call. (Boy, was that stupid.)