Confidentiality and HMRC

Ouch. Someone loses a couple of CDs and HMRC – and the Government – have to admit that two twenty five million [edited] sets of details have gone missing. Very much an ouch, although there appears to be no need to panic as there’s no evidence to suggest anyone is misusing the data. My best guess is that the CDs went missing in the internal post.

The problem arose, you’ll remember (oh come on, you’ve read the story as avidly as the rest of us) when someone sent a couople of CDs in the internal post at HMRC and they didn’t get to their destination. So they re-sent them, and it was only when it emerged that the original CDs had gone missing that there was any outcry.

OK, let’s re-cap. Someone sent two CDs in the ordinary internal post which had 2,000,000 25 million address details on them, and plenty of bank account information. They didn’t record or register the delivery, send by courier or a security firm, it went in the internal post.

I don’t suggest there’s any deliberate wrongdoing in here. But funnily enough, my records are held by HMRC as well. And I can’t help but feel really quite strongly about it when I hear that if someone in another office needs them they’re likely to be whacked onto a disk and stuck in an envelope, then trusted to an ordinary postal system.

I’d guess we’ll be getting an announcement about a significant upgrade to the process any time now.

Guy Clapperton is a freelance journalist who specialises in small business issues and has written for the likes of The Guardian, the FT and the Daily Mirror. Guy has written about finance and franchising for SmallBizPod. http://www.guyclapperton.co.uk