Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

.......... certainly c0cked up big time this time.

Any chance of a resignation ?

Answers on a Child Benefit Claim Form, to.....................

Despite being constantly nagged by those in the 'know' to take all the precautions for keeping personal information secure (ie. shredding all receipts, not disclosing financial details), I'm now quite concerned that all our details registered with the Child Benefit people are lost and potentially up for grabs to the highest bidder when the Revenue are the complete prunes who a) copied the files against Whitehall procedures and b) sent them with the unreliable post unregistered. What a farce!

Has anyone looked on Ebay yet??

Mrs C. wrote:Has anyone looked on Ebay yet??

Look for your house. The Land Registry has been making available details of your property including your morgage, ownership AND YOUR SIGNATURE for a small fee.

I number of people have found their houses morgaged by third parties without their knowledge and in at least one case lenders have obtained court authority to sell the property concerned without even telling the owners the case was going to court.

Be very careful about believing what the Government say. In the case of Northern Rock, Mr Darling "guaranteed" the deposits in various speeches. However The Statute Of Frauds of 16** makes it abundantly clear that any guarantee must be in writing and signed - Mr Darling has done neither so there is no legal and enforceable guarantee. There is an argument that a guarantee must be for consideration - If you do this/that and I guarantee ...... In the Northern Rock case Mr Darling would receive no consideration (legal meaning) for giving his guarantee. There may also be a constitutional question about his power to give such a guarantee.

I thought El Paxo gave the Government Spokesperson, (some non-descript woman), a hard time on Newsnight last night.

Nice one, Jeremy !

J.R. wrote:I thought El Paxo gave the Government Spokesperson, (some non-descript woman), a hard time on Newsnight last night.

Nice one, Jeremy !

Not nearly hard enough - not a single cabinet member or officer of HMCR has yet committed hari kiri in shame (I have to wonder if they even know what shame is).

erm... the head of HMRC resigned as soon as he found out, end of last week I believe

cj wrote: b) sent them with the unreliable post unregistered. What a farce!

again not permitted by their various laws/regulations that are meant to prevent such 'mishaps'.

More this evening.

Apparently the National Audit Office asked for them without bank account details but a Deputy Director said that they would have to pay the IT company extra to take those details off. (my italics)

sejintenej wrote:The Land Registry has been making available details of your property including your morgage, ownership AND YOUR SIGNATURE for a small fee.

True. That service was stopped a couple of weeks ago.

It beggars belief. I have a Department of Health laptop on which I have no patient information, and not even any staff information really, though I do have lots of emails about staff information, and sensitive correspondance related to contractual matters. But probably no more than many other people. But I have umpteen different passwords (though they are synchronised together), and most of all, an encryption system that password protects and encrypts anything I want to copy off on to a data stick. It cannot be decrypted and pasted to another PC without the password. (Actually it's a bl**dy nuisance, especially as I very rarely need to copy anything remotely sensitive, and it's not working properly at the moment so I can't actually copy anything to a data stick at all )

That's on top of the security token that I have to use to get online. If the DH can implement security systems on its staff's PCs, even those who don't access patient data, then why can't HMRC?

Am I right in assuming that the effects of this balls-up could go on for years? Does the data on this disk include details of childrens' names, dates of birth etc? In which case, will the next generation be having problems with identity theft?

lonelymom wrote:Am I right in assuming that the effects of this balls-up could go on for years? Does the data on this disk include details of childrens' names, dates of birth etc? In which case, will the next generation be having problems with identity theft?

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Full names, addresses, dates of birth, of each child in the country, full names and similar details of each parent / legal guardian / adopter. Full details (bank, branch, account number, account name (Mr fred herbert and Mrs freda fuzmacullander spooky) and title (current / savings / investment / number 502 account) and national insurance numbers and child benefit reference numbers. I suspect that telephone numbers are also included and the info could perhaps include race, colour, religion, past marriages (if the kid(s) were born to a previous spouse), family income and its source(s) ....................... In summary, almost everything that the state knows about you except your criminal record.

In short there is sufficient there to carry out many million identity thefts. You are being urged to get your credit record from one or more of the three credit reference agencies. I had one hell of a job and considerable cost trying to get one of them to correct an error in my personal report.
For many years I was Hon Secretary of a trade associations and had severe reservation about one of the three; I just hope they have improved since then.

You need to be far more worried about the regulations coming in next year to take effect in about 4 years time - 50 plus items of personal information including details of your bank accounts, credit card details, email addresses , morgage details, where you will be staying and with whom and why, etc to be given in order to be allowed to leave the country. What travel agent would you trust with such information? What government minister or civil servant would you trust with such information?
After that it is ID cards with even more information. A criminal's field day is promised; imagine who is going to be applying to join the Civil Service!

lonelymom wrote:Am I right in assuming that the effects of this balls-up could go on for years? Does the data on this disk include details of childrens' names, dates of birth etc? In which case, will the next generation be having problems with identity theft?

Apparently childrens' personal details ARE included so yes the identity theft problem could well be ongoing.

lonelymom wrote:Am I right in assuming that the effects of this balls-up could go on for years? Does the data on this disk include details of childrens' names, dates of birth etc? In which case, will the next generation be having problems with identity theft?

Quite possibly, IF the data has got into the wrong hands, but it is quite likely that the envelope is down behind a filing cabinet. (thwew speaks a former civil servant).

Does anyone else think the latest "promise" to increase the amount of Tamiflu etc in case of a flu epidemic is an attempt to take the heat off Darling, or is it just the paranoid O'Riordans?