Identity Theft In The Future?

Hot on the news that Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have managed to lose two discs containing the names, dates of birth, addresses, bank account information and children's names of up to 7 million homes around the UK, Alistair Darling sought to reassure the House of Commons that people were not at risk from ID fraud.

How he can think that gives me some concern about the lack of awareness the Government has. Basically, if you're eight and I know where you live, your date of birth and your mother happens to still have her maiden name (which she would have if she was unmarried, or had decided against taking the name of her partner), I can, in 10 years time follow your address information across the country/world and steal every piece of data known about you.

Which will be very handy for whoever has the information now. HMRC sent the discs by unregistered and unrecorded TNT post and were apparently surprised they didn't make it to the National Audit office (which is weirdly reminiscent of HBOS sending stuff through the Royal Mail).

For overseas readers, HMRC is part of the Government. The same Government who are planning on issuing a National ID Card to the country and expect us to believe they're capable of looking after our data in a secure and efficient way. Personally, I'm not entirely convinced they are.