Emails on benefit record loss revealed

report made on 22 Nov 2007

New evidence suggests that HM Revenue & Customs officials might be concerned more about saving money rather than protecting data, as emails between National Audit Office and HM Revenue & Customs about data transmission have been released.

In one of the emails, an NAO officer asked HMRC to deliver only desensitized data records "as safely as possible". But the reply from HMRC appears to suggest that stripping sensitive data from the files costs too much.

In House of Commons, Chancellor Alistar Darling said the loss of 25 million records of personal data had been caused by an HMRC junior officer who breached the data transmitting procedure.

But the Conservatives claimed that government had failed to protect the public. And the crisis is down to, what they call, high level "systemic failures" in HMRC.

Now, people are seriously concerned about potential data fraud. The government declares that the information was password protected, and there was no evidence that it had been illegally used.

But the real issue is that how government should protect personal information. Significant improvement of the security system in data transmission is certainly needed.