Darling is to make an announcement at 3.30 - bit of a problem?

[threaded]

Over 4000 civil servant staff take their work home with them on laptops. 41 of those laptops were stolen this year, and who is to say how many of the others have been compromised?

Since it appears to only need a single compromise to open the gates of hell, perhaps the public services need to review their policy of home working.

Perhaps it would be more sensible to have a review about whether we actually need these civil servants at all? If they can't do their job 9 to 5 in the office then they really ought to be offered less demanding work.

[matey]

They've found them.....on eBay

child benefit cd x 2 millions of personal details

[threaded]

Apparently the answer to a PQ about the password protection of these disks will report that: yes, there was a password, and yes, it was written on a post-it sent with the disks.

[TimberWolf]

We still haven’t received the data - can you send again please?

Thanks

Audit office



p.s. never mind, we don’t need it now after all. One of our immigrant cleaner trainees extracted the data in 5 seconds flat from one the CDs you sent previously. Thanks anyway. p.p.s. He has since disappeared too, FFS.

[NotAllThere]

Perhaps it would be more sensible to have a review about whether we actually need these civil servants at all?

Excellent idea minister, I'll set up a task force to carry out this review immediately. Which will require hiring another 100 civil servants.

[wendigo100]

I'm beginning to think HMG don't take this security thing seriously.

[wendigo100]

I've just been hearing that the NAO said they wanted the bank details stripped out of the data.

However, the senior HMRC bosses decided they didn't want to pay to have this done, so they sent it as is.

Is it very expensive to extract the data to disk omitting bank details?

[Lambros]

See excellent Jeremy Paxman interview showing the extent of government arrogance and incompetence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHPavBVfHWo

[Rantor]

Apart from the risk of someone hoovering out your bank account and generally ruining your life, this whole affair might have a positive effect.

The erosion of civil liberties and the rampant statism that has taken place in recent years has pretty much gone unchallenged - certainly it ain't anywhere near the top of most peoples political concerns. This might wake people up a bit and question the individual/state relationship a bit more.

[threaded]

I've just been hearing that the NAO said they wanted the bank details stripped out of the data.

However, the senior HMRC bosses decided they didn't want to pay to have this done, so they sent it as is.

Is it very expensive to extract the data to disk omitting bank details?

Allegedly they were quoted £37,850 to do just that by EDS. How's that for a markup: 1 seconds work, if that, maybe another typing it in, and a third for hitting the return key...

And to think I only wanted £500 million for my Child Support Support System, I really ought to have asked for way more.