Half the UK Population Banking details

Browntrout_2

U.K. Treasury chief tried to reassure Britons their personal details were safe Wednesday after the one of the biggest security breaches in the country's history - the loss of two computer disks containing details about almost half the population.

Experts said the loss left millions of people exposed to identity theft and bank fraud.
"I can well understand people's anxiety and anger that this has happened. It should never have happened, and I apologize unreservedly for that," Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling told GMTV television.

There were gasps from lawmakers in the House of Commons on Tuesday when Darling described the scale of the loss by the country's tax and customs service.

Two computer disks that went missing in the post while being sent from one government department to another contained names, addresses, dates of birth, national insurance numbers and in some cases banking details for 25 million adults and children, almost half the country's population of 60 million.

Darling said the disks contained details of the 7.25 million families in U.K. claiming child benefit -a tax-free monthly payment available to everyone with children. He said the delivery was not being tracked and was missing for three weeks before any alarm was raised.

He insisted there was no evidence the data had fallen into the hand of criminals, and said police were involved in a hunt for the missing disks. He said banks had been told to look for signs of suspicious activity, he said.
The disks were password protected, but the information on them was not encrypted, officials said.
"The police tell me there is no evidence there has been any criminal or unusual activity," Darling said.
Darling, already rocked by fallout from the run on troubled mortgage lender Northern Rock, said he was not going to resign.



I think he should resign as he looks like a muppet with white hair and black eyebrows!

Mikeyorks

There's an existing thread here :-
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=601907

And your heading is completely wrong. There's 25M records on the 2 x CDs - but at most 7.25M of those have Bank account data attached. And likely less than that as tax credit claimants, in general, have a far greater proportion who do not have bank accounts - than the general average.

Browntrout_2

It is Child Benefit which is paid to anyone with child.

Most people have this paid direct.

I think this is relevant on the current account topic as well

Mikeyorks

Browntrout wrote: »

It is Child Benefit which is paid to anyone with child.

Try reading what you posted ............. eventually it might sink in. People are allowed more than one child. So there are 7.25M family records (the only ones that possibly contain Bank data) - who, between them, own the remaining 17.75M child records.

Homework

I'm surprised that people on tax credits are less likely to have bank accounts. All those on Working Tax Credit/Child Tax credits are working and have a wage coming in and all those just on Child Tax Credits will either have too much wage to qualify for WTC or be on benefits. There has been a huge reduction in the number of Post Office payments due to bank payments. I'd love to know the figures if you have them.

Mikeyorks

No - I don't have the specific figures for Child Credits. But it was the development work on tax credits, in general, that first identified the massive problem of what became known as the 'unbanked'. And the fact there were disproportionately far more of them within the remit of the new credits regime than anywhere else. That work spawned a number of Govt initiatives to look at the problem. Google 'unbanked' and you'll identify a lot of data.

Latest figures :-

4. According to the latest FRS, there were 2 million adults living in 1.3 million households without access to a bank account in 2005-06. This compares to the baseline figure of 2.8 million adults living in 1.9 million households in 2002-03.

http://www.financialinclusion-taskforce.org.uk/PDFs/banking_issues_fit_gns.pdf

And below is the earlier stuff, as Treasury committees took over where tax credit development left off :-

The unbanked
6. The Family Resources Survey, a periodic survey undertaken by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), indicated that in 2002–03 around 1.9 million households in Great Britain (around 8 per cent of the total number of households) were without access to a bank account of any kind. These households contained around 2.8 million adults and at least 1 million children. A further 1.1 million households did not have access to a current account.
As the chart below shows, while the proportion of households without a current account had fallen over time, the number of households without an account of any kind had remained broadly constant.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmtreasy/1717/1717.pdf

....... as you can see, it's a bewildering number overall. And, in reality despite the 'success' claims, it's barely shifted in the 3 years between 2002-03 and 2005-06.

peterbaker

Mikeyorks wrote: »

Try reading what you posted ............. eventually it might sink in. People are allowed more than one child. So there are 7.25M family records (the only ones that possibly contain Bank data) - who, between them, own the remaining 17.75M child records.

Don't be so bloody patronising Mikeyorks ... you don't know the real numbers any better than the OP. The main facts given so far show that a huge proportion of the whole UK population is affected :mad:, and what we haven't been told is how many of the rest of the population were unexpectedly in those ridiculous database copies.

Given the nature of employment in the UK (huge amounts of temporary workers who are eligible for full benefits one month and not eligible the next), and the huge numbers of broken families (a broken family is at least two households if you hadn't noticed) the 'numbers' might actually work the other way. How do you know how the Government has defined the word "family" in the Chancellor's statements? Where more than one fragment of the original 'family' might have claimed child credit, and also where we've been given no idea over what time period this data was collected so bank details may have changed leaving multiple account details for two or more adults linked to each child then there could actually be multiple records that you haven't talked about. So, Mikeyorks, you really do not have a clue what you are talking about, do you? Or do you? Perhaps you are playing this catastrophe down or skewing it for a reason?

Homework is also absolutely correct. Child Benefit claimants are not poor people without bank accounts, they are just unfortunates who now have had their personal data broadcast by the Government to all the banks in the country without proper permission being sought...

I imagine that there are data analysts working through the night at these banks right now, not checking any more rigorously for fraud on their accounts than they do most nights, oh no. Checking for fraud is routine. No, no, they'll be merging their newly and completely freely acquired Government Data with everything else they know about us, and drawing a whole massive new set of conclusions, and probably have covertly got the Government's blessing to do so.

If I acquired a database containing the names and d.o.b.s of 25M people and the family links between them coupled with NINos and addresses past and present, benefit levels perhaps(?), incomes perhaps (?), bank accounts past and present, as someone who knows the power of databases I have made from other databases I could have an absolute field day playing with it using the meagre power of just my laptop ! I would also be able to draw very valid conclusions by elimination about people whose names were not on the Government database at all, but appeared on other databases I might hold.


So explain your ridiculous position please. Do you have any concept at all of the danger this has exposed us all to?

What exactly is your agenda? Or are you just being contrary for the fun of it?


Incidentally, in the response of one of the banks to the Chancellor's statement today, the bank intriguingly said that the missing data was on data cartridges (not CDs). Know anything about that?

Mikeyorks

peterbaker wrote: »

Incidentally, in the response of one of the banks to the Chancellor's statement today, the bank intriguingly said that the missing data was on data cartridges (not CDs). Know anything about that?

Only that makes more sense. If you look at the main thread I linked to ... I can't possibly see how this data would fit on 2 x CDs, even with data compression. So media with greater capacity .. would answer that. But as everyone else - from Chancellor downwards - has it that CDs are the missing media - then I'll go with the majority and accept that possibly only 7.25M will contain addresses (by far the biggest data field).

As to agenda? The only real consistency across the board has been that there are 25M records - embracing 7.25M families, which are AWOL. So if you look at post #2 - you will see I take exception to the inflammatory heading that 'Half the UK population banking details' are potentially compromised.

That's my sole agenda - not difficult if you just took the trouble to read it.

Having read your ramblings ..... hope your head's better in the morning.;)

peterbaker

Mikeyorks my head's fine thanks. I took exception to you downplaying the numbers unnecessarily.

You talk of the HMRC's data as "embracing 7.25M families". How trite :rolleyes: . We'll all feel so much warmer and safer with that kind of language.

There is nothing family-sized about this cockup and/or connivation. It is a bloody farce, enough to make good men cry I shouldn't wonder. One already resigned I think.

For someone with a sole agenda you seem to take exception to a lot, and to leave a lot of loose ends:

You choose to use a soft word like AWOL? I never knew data contained intent. When does it intend to return to base, do you think? Maybe it never left? How does any of that describe our personal data now given to all the banks for free? Is that ever coming back again? Like hell it is.

On the other thread you chose to split hairs over the words "password-protected" and "encrypted". When it was explained that in the most common context the two were synonymous you didn't venture a further context to support your split hairs. What context were you thinking of?

You very quickly jumped on another poster for daring to suggest they might publish the content of a internally agreed customer helpline script as soon as they received it. I haven't yet worked out why you took exception to that.

Homework

I think it is more likely the information would be used to create false identities than steal money out accounts. However, as they are now aware that this has happened they will be looking for duplicate tax and contributions coming in on a National Insurance number (indicating that a number has been hijacked by someone who does not have or does not want to use their own number) and I would hope that banks and government departments are on the guard for anything dodgy