The BBC website has a rather shocking article today. The title is “UK’s families put on fraud alert” There is a brief lead-in, pretty well guaranteed to induce paranoia in anyone who might be on the Child Benefit database, warning them to check their bank accounts, on the authority of a government minister no less.

Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing.
The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25m people. (from the BBC article)

Blimey. 25 million people’s personal details fit on two disks? And these disks holding very personal information were getting sent to the National Audit Office? Slight aside while I wonder why? More of this vaunted “joined up government” in action? I assume that bit in the Data Protection Act about information only being used for the purpose for which it’s gathered is just too quaint for today’s new information society?

Doesn’t this infinitely foreseeable event call into question the whole ID card madness yet again? How long before the records held by the multi billion health service computer, the passport office, the criminal records bureau, the tax office, the humongous national DNA register or the vehicles and licence authority also go AWOL? How much easier will it be for everyone’s personal information on the vaunted unified national identity database to disappear at one fell swoop?

(Note to self. Stop posting questions.)