There is also the possibility that they never existed in the first place. The ‘they must have been lost in the post’ ploy could have been used to cover up that the muppet couldn’t be arsed to created them when originally requested.
Can anyone honestly tell me that things would have been any better under the conservatives. DC like GB is trying to add more government activity when what we really need is for every aspect of government to be assessed and given a rating of its benefit to the country. At least half the laws could be scrapped and the departments administering them closed.
The good workers could then be transferred to the remaining departments to provide the resources needed for an efficient and responsive civil service.
then the 25 million people whose details they contain would know they were safe.
Hmm, nobody think duplicates wont be made then? How long does it take to do a diskcopy. The data has left a "secure" location, it has been compromised and can never be considered secure again even if the two discs do now turn up.
I don't think DC made enough milage during PMQT same as he didn't over the referendum petition. Mind you GB seems to be doing the job of hanging himself.
This is PROOF that ID Cards are not the way forward.
I agree, but it looks as though everyone except the government believes ID Cards and National Identity Database should be abandoned. Gordon Brown just says preparations are well underway (amazing rush when you consider how long some things take when government is less keen).
Why is government covering up the truth about ID Cards if GB believes they are so obviously needed? If ID Cards are as necessary as Gordon Brown claims, why is he taking legal action to prevent the public from knowing the conclusions of the Gateway reviews into ID Cards? Why has he defied the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal by refusing all requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the results of the reviews? Even parliament will not be allowed access.
Has David Cameron asked GB about this in parliament?
There is a terrible irony in the fact of millions of families' confidential details, which are protected by the Data Protection Act and the Information Commissioner, being treated so casually, while information from Gateway reviews into ID Cards, which is our right to know about and the Information Commissioner has told the government to release to the public, is so jealously guarded by the government and kept from anyone outside the government.
Is this the open and answerable government promised by GB in his non-election campaign? DC, please ask GB about this in parliament.
Frank Abagnale, the man whose fraudulent pretense of being a doctor & pilot was shown in the Spielberg film, Catch Me if You Can said:
"If I had to bet I'd say someone internal had been paid to allow that information to be stolen. They knew it was extremely sensitive."
"If you have this data you are not going to use it today, not even this year, but perhaps in two to three years time the breach will show up.
"To the criminal, the longer they sit on this information the more valuable it can become. They can sell off the information a bit at a time. People can change their bank, their credit card, but they cannot change their name and date of birth, or national insurance number, and that is why this data is so valuable."
Mr Abagnale agreed that ID cards were a bad idea because: "You cannot trust any agency with people's personal data." -- Telegraph
Hey from a young persons point of view these 'missing' files of children's age and address details could be sold to paedophile rings that target kids for grooming, assault and possibly DEATH.
Labour nitwits are forever banging on about security and their precious war of terror. They themselves are our biggest threat to national and individual security, and are the perpetrators of state terror in various locations around the globe. They are locked into their own fantasy world, WW01.
I could not agree more. If I hear El Gordo pontificate about his need to provide us with security against terrorists one more time I’ll spit.
Oooh, of course we now need luggage checks on train stations. Wow! Try planning a journey if you have to factor in airport style checks at the railway station. Catch a connection? What connection?
As far as I’m concerned you’re more likely to be killed in an accident involving the train derailing on lousily maintained track, than from it being blown up.
As if Osama’s pals get hold of this data that’s been lost heaven help us all.
But hey, he’s protecting us, right? Do you feel safe?
Frankly, I’d like to do without Gordon’s ‘protection’.
That said, I don’t want Cameron protecting me from rappers’ lyrics either.
I’d just like these big bully boys to let me have my life back. Why don’t they just database themselves away and leave us be!
They understand better than any remote bureaucrat what's right for their area.
believe that trusting people and sharing responsibility is the right way forward.
TRUSTING PEOPLE
There are two beliefs which form the core of my political philosophy.
The first is the belief that if you trust people, they will generally do the right thing.
The more power and responsibility people have over their own lives, the stronger they become, and
the stronger society becomes.
The above are actual quotes David Cameron made in the past on his leadership election website and on the conservatives website.
Does this not now come back to haunt him?
Am I not vindicated in my view that sometimes the professionals cannot be trusted?
I love this bit - a reverse National Lottery - essentially a negative National Lottery. How sad and how true...
Quote:
Alistair Darling has invented a kind of reverse National Lottery, in which the giant finger hovers over our streets. It could be you. It could be me - and what will happen to the victims? I will tell you.
Lost or sold? That was my initial reactionas they must be worth a great deal to fraudsters.
Years ago the Government wanted all FAC holders to be put on a National Data Base just for government benefit !!!!!
As Chair of our Pistol/Rifle club at that time members and myself disagreed. Are you there Smokeless?
The data is more likely to be used for creating bad loans in your name or claiming benefits on your behalf. Also, more data can be easily pulled out of your bin, picked up through phishing attacks etc.
Celebrities and ex-victims of child abuse, battery & rape are the ones who really have to worry. They'll have to move house if the data becomes available.
First thing this morning I checked the news headlines on Teletext, as I do before I go to work.
ITV was showing as their top story; "Tories renew missing records attack."
BBC's interpretation was "Government challenges data claims (by the Tories)"
Hmm... The Beeb's getting up to its old tricks again!
Yes Lizabeth, I was commenting to a fellow of the sport shooting lobby (not "gun lobby") the other day that I wondered how safe the National Firearms Database was. Addresses where every legal firearm in the country is located. All your eggs in one basket comes to mind again.
It will be the same for the ID card farce. It only take one unscrupulous person to run off a copy onto disc fancying making a few bob. Oh no, the politicians have that market cornered.
And Browns Broadcasting Company will say it was Maggies fault.
RedAnarchist, I find that surprising given that a full office search was carried out.
They may well still be in the building, but it makes the situation no better. If anything, it is even more serious. Potentially a member of staff with exclusive knowledge of the CDs could have hidden it and used it.
Yes Lizabeth, I was commenting to a fellow of the sport shooting lobby (not "gun lobby") the other day that I wondered how safe the National Firearms Database was. Addresses where every legal firearm in the country is located. All your eggs in one basket comes to mind again.
Smokeless,
Seriously, there is such a thing as a national firearms database?
Aka, the if-interested-in-stealing-a-firearm-apply-here database!
I don’t get it. Why would it not suffice for a local constabulary to know who in their area holds guns legally?
Sure, it would hurt if such a list went missing. But the other....
Ah well, I’m obviously not as clever as all those centralising control-freaks….
But then I could see that list being worth a lot of money to the right sort of person.
The government inter-department mail service is described by TNT has a 'specialised service' which is called
Inter-site Mail. Here is TNT's charter for the service.
'Whether delivering and sorting mail between key office locations or a network of retail outlets, we have the experience and consolidated delivery network to increase reliability, efficiency and security.'
If security is in the charter then WHY is the basic service, to which this charter refers, unable to audit it's deliveries or at least provide the email tracking facility that benefits its standard service?
Maybe these discs have been aquired/borrowed by a third party security agency engaged in fraud detection or anti-terrorism!
I believe they will 'turn up' from whence they came.
We shall see!
Phantom, yes it was one of the requirements post Dunblane. Ten years later it had still not been implemented but has just started to be rolled out.
As usual an IT shambles. We have shooters all over the country who comply and apply for FAC renewal but the new system is such a mess that FAC's are not being issued till long after the old one has run out. This leaves us holding firearms without a permit, ergo breaking the law through no fault of our own.
Its a central database accesible from multiple locations making it like trying to hold water in a sieve.
Harold Wilson said "A week in politics is a long time"-for Gordon Brown this past week has been very,very long.A fish rot's from the head!He is the Head of government,everything stems from him,and,as such,he must take responsibilty for all actions taken from those appointed by him-he should NOW,face facts and GO!
Ah, isn’t it lovely…
New Labour has it appears gone into self-destruct mode.
Yesterday Dianne (every nipple is porn) Abbott could only laugh embarrassedly when Portillo and Neil savaged Brown and his Darling.
Now every time a disk goes missing anywhere, the media is going to lay into these twerps.
My great hope is that the greater public (and especially the media) will become more questioning of this everlasting centralisation and logging and filing of all and sundry.
Just tagging the expression ‘anti-terrorist’ or ‘security’ to anything you seek to do ought not suffice to get away with it. This lot ought to have been badgered and harassed for much longer by now.
But people like Cameron were too worried to appear non-security minded, weak on crime/terrorism, etc. to really go to town on them. Now things have changed. The file debacle has opened up government ravenous appetites, combined with its ineptitude, as the can of worms that it truly is.
The idea that we ought to trust in the state, no matter what, that all authorities only have our good in mind, now seems somewhat defunct.
Once people realise that the state can’t be trusted per se to a good job, they might become a little more sceptical what they wish to trust the state apparatus with.
Smokeless’ post that there’s a central database listing all legal gun owners is a real revelation to me. It shows just what stupidity lies behind the whole thinking of the power-mongers in Whitehall.
Let’s just hope that recent mishaps go to remind people what a state really is for. It’s a cooperative pooling of resources in order to achieve things we – the people – wish to see done, but could not achieve individually. Things such as defence, public infrastructure, policing and so on.
However, the state should not be an entity of its own with its own agenda and its own interests.
It ought not be the ‘fat controller’, no matter how many terrorists, criminals or immigrants there are. It’s just a large Coop, no matter how pompous its current executive are.
I just hope the madness of recent years will start coming to an end now.
Canvas, we all know he wont stand down or resign, the damage has been done regarding the public.. but he will hope that they are found, and not fallen into wrong hands.... take the sting out of it, and wait for the tories to make a cock up on something or other.....
I agree with Nick robinson DC doesn't want to dwell on the subject, let others do that, and use the opportunity in laying identity cards to the dustbin for good... Really nail this goverment on many of their mistakes and bad policies,,, Go for it David..
Mr Brown's doomed, I tell you Unlike his predecessor, who could repel misfortune, the Prime Minister seems fated to attract it
Matthew Parris
At the highest levels of our City and business world, it is not uncommon for chief executives to be appointed then dropped within a matter of months. The same goes for sport, as Steve McClaren can testify. Leadership is all about chemistry, and sometimes the chemistry just doesn't work. “It didn't gel,” can be an honest explanation beyond which it may be pointless to go.
Why should politics be different? After a dreadful week, following a dreadful month, crowning a disappointing season, Britain should be mulling over a very simple possibility: that the Prime Minister isn't up to the job. In the cliché of management consultancy, Gordon Brown is finding his new post more challenging than had been expected, and it may soon be time to draw a line, let him go, and move on.
The BBC have chosen to put this as their top headline. Was there really nothing more newsworthy than is or is it yet another example of anti-Tory bias?
The above refers to the interview Jack Straw had on the Andrew Marr Show, where he says the disc crisis is "no Black Wednesday."
The Biased Broadcasting Corporation were good enough to give us a video of Jack Straw's interview but made no reference whatsoever to David Davis' interview on the same programme, which was conducted just before Jack Straw's. It's a disgrace.
Votedave - this was in your article above. Interesting.
LibDems have picked up quite a few points too.
I wonder if that is because despite all of Labours screw ups - people are still scared of the 'Tories' of old ??
I know I am! :)
I think DC has to really keep working on decontaminating 'the brand'. He's getting there - but it will be hard work.
Quote:
Tory lead
According to the News of the World, Labour's 12-point poll lead over the Tories on managing the economy two months ago has been eroded, with the parties now level on 38% each.
The poll gives Conservative leader David Cameron an eight-point lead over Mr Brown as the best leader, on 46% to 38%.
Mr Cameron is 17 points ahead among 25-34 year-olds, the poll suggests.
On the question of which party had the best policies and ideas for Britain, the Conservatives were 10 points ahead.
Meanwhile, a Mail on Sunday poll of 1,333 people put the Conservatives on 40%, five points ahead of Labour.
I think DC has to really keep working on decontaminating 'the brand'. He's getting there - but it will be hard work.
I can agree with that. His reply to my question via askcameron regarding the pistols did not get a good reception.
Traditionally and historically shooters are predominantly conservative. Kicking 2.5m voters while they are down is not appreciated. I think he should seek advice from his new chum Arnie about the importance of the shooters votes.
Smokeless,
Well, perhaps a slightly unfortunate example, to bring Arnie and the US problems with guns into it.
As such, I think the US urgently need some sort of gun control.
That doesn’t mean that I agree with what’s happened over here. The laws introduced there were knee-jerk laws, post Dunblane. Tabloids, emotive petitions, sobbing mothers. These are things which are never a good basis from which to make sound law.
Had some sensible curbs or increased controls to legal hand gun ownership been introduced post Dunblane, I think most would have been in support.
But the out and out destruction of a sport and past time seemed to me to be a sort of legislative vandalism.
But to get back to the subject, seems to me that the government is showing no indication of changing its course in any way, post ‘diskgate’.
Not least because all Labour backbenchers seem that terrified of Brown that none of the m have aired any views regarding a change of tack at all. The ranks are still holding firm.
As long as his majority holds, Brown is going to bulldoze this through. Why? Because he can.
I was hoping for some signs of rebellion from the backbenches, once the catastrophe broke. But not a peep so far.
The Tories and the Liberals can demand a change of policy until the cows come home. If Brown has the numbers, then nothing matters.
And with an election being another 2 ½ years off, he may simply not care about public support.
After all, he’s the government, so he’s been born always right.
At this rate all the data they hold will be in the public domain shortly. Kinda makes an ID system irrelevant. Can hardly say it will improve security.
Hey we had our "sorry for the inconvenience of handing out your details" letter in the post today.
That's a bit of a record. I'm still waiting for my credit card, applied for a fortnight ago. Looks like the Post office have hired another criminal to deliver my mail. Or maybe the one who got jailed for stealing the last one has been let out.
The Office of The Information Commissioner has not yet seen fit to even acknowledge my complaint that HMRC breached rather more than the seventh data protection principle.
I'll let you know if a response ever arrives. Assuming the Identity Fraudsters don't get here first.
25m letters to send out, who will pick up the bill for that? Labour? I think not, more likely you and I.
I understand section 13 of the Data Protection act indicates we may all apply for compensation
13 Compensation for failure to comply with certain requirements
(1) An individual who suffers damage by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that damage.
(2) An individual who suffers distress by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that distress if—
(a) the individual also suffers damage by reason of the contravention, or
(b) the contravention relates to the processing of personal data for the special purposes.
(3) In proceedings brought against a person by virtue of this section it is a defence to prove that he had taken such care as in all the circumstances was reasonably required to comply with the requirement concerned
Who will pay for that?
Lets see if I can rephrase that.
HMCR pays X million pounds for this postage that is clawed back off the public. So we have all suffered damage.
(1) An individual who suffers damage.
I'm not happy about that, I want compensation for this damage suffered, who is responsible? from whom do I claim? Oh its HMCR who, if they paid it, would claim it back from the public, eeeekkkk.
But a man from BAE systems has given me 2 CD's, 1 about how to protect your child on the internet and the other is entitled 'over half the UK's computer users have lost data'
39
False statements: offence
A person commits an offence if—
(a)
he knowingly or recklessly makes a statement to the Commission which is false in any material particular, and
(b)
the statement is made, or purports to be made, on behalf of a party for any purpose of this Part of this Act.
Twice in her statement to the media Harriet Harman claimed that she had accepted the dodgy donation "in good faith". Under normal circumstances acting in good faith negates having acted in bad faith. However, the charge is not that Harriet Harman acted in bad faith. Rather, it is that she acted recklessly. Gordon Brown and Hilary Benn have avoided this charge by not accepting a donation from David Abrahams via an agent Miss Janet Kidd. Furthermore, Hilary Benn took care to ensure that his donation came from and was declared as coming from David Abrahams. Because Harriet Harman failed to take care, which would normally be termed as being negligent, she was reckless.
QUOTE
I am writing to make a personal apology. A copy of some HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) data about families, including yours, who have received Child Benefit has been lost. The copy of the data is likely to still be on Government property. The police are now conducting a search, and there is no evidence that it is in the possession of anyone else. This will not affect your Child Benefit payments.
This data includes your and your children's names and dates of birth, your address, your National Insurance Number and, where relevanr, the details of your bank or building society account into which your Child Benefit is or was paid.
UNQUOTE
....then a whole load of garbage about computer crime and banks saying not really neccessary to change your bank account (presumably coz they don't give a chuff unless you pay) and remember to check invoices and statements....yadda yadda. And finally the soft soap won't do it again, honest, really coz we're so brilliant now.
QUOTE
I would like to offer my personal apologies for any worry or concern this data loss may cause you. And I can assure you that all efforts are being made to ensure that such loss can never happen again.
DAVE HARTNETT
ACTING CHAIRMAN
UNQUOTE
Whoopee for me. Now I can sleep safe and sound, fill in my income tax form giving even more details of my life which no doubt will either not be looked at, lost or sold to some Nigerian scamster.
I'm still waiting for my tax return as well .... obviously this office at Preston isn't too keen on sending me mail either ...
cripes, do you think I've dropped out of the system altogether???
I once got in touch with Experian and they told me I didn't exist
I wouldn't be at all surprised if these CD's haven't just dropped behind a radiator or something, perhaps when Mercury goes over it's retrograde point they'll turn up again.
