British Government Screws Half of British Citizens

At least the half that gets welfare checks for having children.

Two disks, put in the snail mail system, mailed from the Tax department to the audit agency, never arrived.  Why this data couldn’t be transferred electronically in encrypted form is anyone’s guess.

From the AP here:

Two computer disks bearing addresses, bank account numbers and other details of about 25 million people — almost half the British population — were popped into internal government mail and never arrived.

The government says there is no sign the data has fallen into criminal hands.

The disks disappeared while being sent by internal mail from the tax and customs department to the government’s audit agency. They contained names, addresses, birthdates, national insurance numbers and, in some cases, banking details for 25 million adults and children.

Treasury chief Alistair Darling said the disks held information on the 7.25 million families in Britain claiming a child benefit — a tax-free monthly payment available to everyone with children.

The disks were password protected, but the information on them was not encrypted.

I’m taking a guess that they are talking about DVD or CDRom discs here.  How the hell do you password-protect a DVD but not encrypt it?  I didn’t think that CDRoms could be password protected either, and if its not encrypted, nothing will prevent a sector by sector recovery of the data.