25 million exposed to risk of ID fraud
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2910705.ece
By Philip Webster
Political Editor
Sean O’Neill and Rhys Blakely
The Times
November 21, 2007
The sensitive personal details of 25 million Britons could have fallen
into the hands of identity fraudsters after a government agency lost the
entire child benefit database in the post.
A major police investigation is being conducted after Alistair Darling,
the Chancellor, admitted yesterday that names, addresses, birth dates,
national insurance numbers and bank account details of every child
benefit claimant in the country had gone missing.
The confidential material is on two CDs that were placed in the post by
a junior employee at the HM Revenue & Customs office in Tyne & Wear more
than a month ago and have not been seen since.
UK data security breach & kids
A massive security breach involving the personal information of "virtually every child in Britain" has occurred in the United Kingdom, The Guardian reports <http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,,2214109,00.html>. It "could expose the personal data of more than 25 million people - nearly half the country's population," CBS News reports <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/21/tech/main3529481.shtml>. The data concerns "families with children, including names, dates of birth, addresses, bank account information and insurance records." Two computer disks containing the data were sent via ordinary mail between two government departments and were apparently lost in the mail. The breach was announced to the House of Commons yesterday by Alistair Darling, Britain's equivalent to our treasury secretary. He said this wasn't the first time Britain's tax agency had experienced such a breach. There was, however, no evidence that the data has fallen into criminal hands.
This is a clear illustration of risky it would be to have a national database of children's personal information in the US, which is what would be required in order to establish children's age verification online.