15m bank details lost!!
 

Confidential details of 15 million child benefit recipients are on computer discs lost by HM Revenue and Customs, the BBC understands.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Discs with 15m bank details lost

this is ridiculous and very worrying!!:eek:

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as the article says, there is nothing there by which someone can access our account directly. It would still take social engineering or some other method to scam you.

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Is there only me thinking this is a bit odd? What sprang to my mind was how many people are really claiming for kids not living in the country. Not that what they are doing is illegal just that it could be a way of covering the true figures up!!

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alistar darling has said, in the house of commons that any one who has fraudulant activity in their account due to this will be refunded......
the disc contained names+childrens names, ages, addresses, national insurance numbers... these should have been lookes after.. they could be used for many things if they fall into the wrong hands

these were sent through royal mail 1st class post and not the registered post...

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It really is frightening, there is so much personal detail there, that could be used for identity fraud. I would have thought that information of a very sensitive nature would have been sent by courier (or Royal Mail Special Delivery).

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this is child benefit so every child in the country's details are on this list!!

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It's a bad situation but I'm not in the least bit surprised. Having, up to last month, worked for the organisation for so long I have been appalled, in the last few years, at the way it has gone downhill, mainly due to the tremendous staff cutting that has gone on. The Government decided that HMRC could function just as well with 1/2 the workforce and it's as crazy as expecting a football team to win every match with only 5 players.

I keep thinking of the words chickens, home, come, to and roost - not necessarily in that order.

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It has just been on the news that the figure is twenty five million. Ten million adult and fifteen million childrens details have been lost.

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This sort of thing is happening so often. Perhaps with all this info out there in all kinds of places it has to happen occasionally. Maybe it is a feature of the computer age that stuff will be hacked and go missing. Not too long ago in the US and Canada, Winners ... a clothing franchise ... "lost" the credit card and debit card info on millions of customers. Even the RCMP dumped sensitive files in the garbage and left them out on the street. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce "mislaid" the personal and financial info on thousands of their customers. Corrections Canada sold a bunch of their old computers without wiping the information from them. It goes on and on ... and will probably happen a lot more.

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This is the same government that wants us all on their database......I wouldn't trust ' em to run a jumble sale.

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I agree ... most govts., ours included, would be hard put to orgainise an orgy in a whorehouse.:rolleyes:

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a complete mess, apparently in the wrong hands people are able to get credit in your name,etc, but can't acess yer bank account, oh well that makes it all right, i think not.:rolleyes:

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they'll have a job getting credit in my name.... i blinking well can't!!!!!:D

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im a bit lost, i have read the article but being spanish sometimes is not easy, can someone explain it to me please, i have a child and want to know whats going on???

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Is it just me or is the fact that a "junior" read casual, member of staff was allowed to download all details of all Child benefit recipients, a bit scary or am I just being paranoid (BTW I work for the DWP and there is no way in hell we would be allowed to do this).

If they are then I would call for the heads of all depts in HMRC and not just the muppet who resigned.

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Right Yolanda,

I'll try.

Some muppet in the tax office sent off yours and 24,999,999 others details (including your national insurance number, bank details and date of birth as well of those of your child) to the National Audit Office in October, these details never arrived (they got lost).

Now the government is trying to say that we don't need to panic as they have informed the banks. However they have not uttered a word about the potential of identity theft.

Ipso Facto keep an eye on every little bit of post that comes through and look for anything strange.

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In other words, el gobierno es tontos. Es verdad!

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Thanks a lot for your explanation, that sounds more english to me , so the question i would like to ask is, will that affect my payments? i got my cb on the 13th does that mean we still get paid but the details had been lost? does my account number appear on the details lost on the post?:confused:

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verdad ! your right on that one, but thats the goberment everywhere

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It wouldn't be a "casual" as HMRC don't employ them any more. It is quite possible that the actual process was carried out by someone of a lower grade but it must have been authorised by the person's manager and should have been authorised by the manager's manager.

I wonder who decided this was permissable as HMRC has always had a policy of not divulging information even to other Civil Service departments. You will probably recognise, Stanaccy, that Fraud Hotline information is passed from DWP to HMRC but not the other way round. If permission was sought and granted it must have come from a very senior source. The "junior" staff member is a scapegoat.

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You will still be paid. It is just copies of your details that have been lost.

Actually iwill defend the government per se on this (yes you may fall over in shock) it is some defective numpty who lost this, and they failed to follow procedures.

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This won't affect your child benefit payments. The money will be paid to you as usual. The issue is that a document showing the bank details, national insurance number, date of birth etc of everyone with a child under 16 has been posted out and got lost.

If this document falls into the wrong hands we are at risk of having fraudsters access our bank account or get credit in our names, using our details.

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thats also my thoughts stanaccy, whilst not defending the goverment,its not down to them whatever the bullsh1t brigade in the media say.

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OK I'll take it as FTC then. Yes I agree that the AO or AA is going to be a scapegoat however how the hell were they allowed to download the full register of CB claims???? That for me beggars belief. Not even SEOs in our dept are allowed to do that.

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There is something fishy about this whole affair!!!

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I shall certainly be keeping an eye on my bank account. If the £3.50 that's in there until payday goes missing, I shall be asking questions! :rolleyes:

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I can't answer that. The Child Benefit Office comes under the umbrella of HMRC but, in reality, it's separate. I was only involved in Income Tax and Tax Credits. It's even more amazing in that, in Tax Credit Claimant Compliance, we had to have special clearance (and limited access) to get any information on Child Benefits and we certainly didn't get the sort of information that was, apparently, in these files.

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having been the victim of identity fraud I can assure you all it is serious matter.All my cash went out of the bank-I had a £2000 bill from Harrods(not sure if i got a carrier)£8000 bill from a jewelers in London 6 of the latest camera mobile phones complete with insurance policies e.t.c. various standing orders.the problem traced back to an employee at a call centre in Ireland working for a local building societywho sent a replacement debit card to an address in Ruislip ,.dispite the person giving my old address(claimed I'd lost the card) Got no help from the police at all-had to do it all myself-took 12 months up to now and I'ts not over yet.Harrods still want 2 grande plus interest.good job I saved up when I was young.

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I think that HMRC is totally screwed up since the merger between Customs and Revenue. I know someone who has been in Customs since leaving school. The Revenue lot were on higher pay grades than the Customs lot. This has meant that when job opportunities come up in the Customs side there are lots of Revenue workers at a high enough grade to be considered. What is actually happening is that teams of Customs Officer's are now under the control of Tax Inspectors who know nothing about under cover Custom's operations etc. They appear to have got the jobs because of the grade they are on not their level of experience.

Now must be a good time to become a smuggler ;) :D

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I retired from the Civil Service in 1994, during a tory government.
At that time large sections of civil service jobs were being PRIVATISED.
My job, government building management, went 'private' the year after I left,
along with the typists, telephonists, cleaners, mail opening and other anxiliary support services.
The result of this was an influx of workers into government buildings, who are not civil servants, and whose 'security status' was not vetted.

The outsourcing of claim processing to foreign countries was also under consideration at that time - don't think that happened - thank goodness

This reduced the number of civil servants and the government payroll - for political reasons.

Both tory and labour governments have been responsible for the 'butchering' of the Civil Service

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well if they try and steal my identity, they would soon bin it!!
they will get nowt out of me....im skint!!

maybe they would feel sorry for me and give me money!:rolleyes:

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They could give you debts

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If because of this mess you actually have your identity frauded or bank account hacked then could you sue the government????

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doubt it, my credit score is probably zero, i never get credit!:rolleyes:

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All the money they spend on IT 'consultancy' when designing these systems, you would think they would spot a simple security flaw.

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I'm more surprised that in these days of fast encrypted links they still send a physical piece of media.

The data should have at very least been encrypted. As most know I work for a Bank. I deal with Live systems and can tell you our internal processes state that data must be encrypted if it moves even if it is only internally within a server in a secure environment. e.g. if a server makes a call back to itself the request never even travels outside the physical unit yet it MUST be encrypted. These are computers that even though I am responsible for keeping them running I am not under any circumstances allowed in the same building as them.

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Looks like we all lost on on buying the information :D

Find Two CD-R's - Have data on them - some sort of database on eBay within, Other, Everything Else (end time 21-Nov-07 12:21:09 GMT)

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in the last two days ive been listening to this a lot on the news, and to be honest i'm not too worried about it, like someone said this morning on tv, as long as you keep an eye on your bank statements it will all be fine, AND DONT PANIC

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It's not really relevant to this particular issue but I will set the record straight here.

Inland Revenue used to be higher paid than other departments because of the huge, diverse amount of knowledge we were required to have. The disparity in pay disappeared 20 years ago.

When IR merged with C & E there were cross-overs both ways. There may have been more high grade people in IR but that's because it was a much bigger organisation. The director in charge of my last job in HMRC was a lady from former C & E. She knew nothing about tax when she took over.

The biggest part of what the C & E did, prior to the merger, was not Customs - it was VAT and that's what some Revenue managers began to cover.

Having said all that I agree with you that things have only got worse since the departments merged. It's all due, as I've said before and Margaret verifies, to the "culling" of staff in the name of economy.

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Just read through this thread and you all seam worried about your bank accounts what about the other big problem?
these discs have all the details of children on the disc so what happens if a phedophille ring get hold of the discs?
these discs need finding fast

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i was thinking about that too mick... its no good saying that the discs were lost miles away because these people tend to pass/sell information on to one another... every single child in the country is on this list!!

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The true blame for this debacle should lie with the politicians and civil servants who decided to locate the IR office in Newcastle. Every person up there is a thicko of some sort; sticking a database like this in the snail mail is exactly what would be expected of them.

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there must have been a better, more secure way of sending them!!!!

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The National Insurance records HQ has been in the North East since at least 1950 !
The records of contributions paid by the whole nation were kept there and recorded manually in the days before computerisation.
I have great respect for the work ethic and intelligence of the people of the North East.
TEALEAF - stop the stirring :p

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Exactly. And that is why one in every two taxpayers in this country pay the wrong amount of tax.

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I refer to National Insurance Contribution records not tax records. Now that Inland Revenue have absorbed the Contributions Agency in recent years, along with all the other things like Tax credits and Vat, I do not know whether it now houses any of their HQ also.
It is logical to leave a large facility like that operational because it is in an area where jobs are scarce and people are willing to work for less than in London - where civil servants are given additional pay just to work there

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People are given extra pay because the capital is a very expensive place to live. Anyway, civil servants may be employed by the state, but whether they work or not is a different matter. I doubt if the ones I know have ever done a decent day's work in their lives.

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No, of course, I used to go to work and do my knitting in between drinking endless cups of tea that got in the way of my feet when they were up on my desk, when I wasn't asleep. :rolleyes:

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Well, you're honest enough to admit it. I admire that.

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:D..........................:D

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The audits of individual office error rates were notoriously worse in the Home Counties for the whole time - 35 yrs - I was employed in MInistry of Pensions & National Insurance, National Assistance Board, Ministry of Social Security, Dept of Health & Social Security, Benefits Agency, Dept of Work and Pensions.

The frequent name changes are indicative of the frequency with which successive governments meddle with the administration for political reasons, and how civil servants have needed to absorb changes to working practices frequently.

Too much too fast has been loaded on to the Inland Revenue in recent times and has been accompanied by severe job cuts. The responsibilty for this fiasco lies in both this government and previous governments (tory and labour) who have used the Civil Service as a whipping boy to set low pay standards for the nation.

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I'm glad the child benefit office is in Newcastle. My favourite female accent is Geordie ( after French that is :) ), shame they don't screw things up more often so I have to speak to them more :p

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Nowt changes, does it? Civil Servants have always whinged just because various politicos have changed the name on the front door. After all, the complaining gives 'em summat do do in an otherwise uneventful day.

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Your capacity for tongue in cheek s**t stirring never ceases to amaze me :rolleyes:

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i would imagine that civil servants are kept pretty busy with people complaining that they are not getting enough money?

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LOL - that's why we had bullet proof glass between you and us and carried personal alarms when such protection wasn't practical - lovely job at times :D

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i dont understand why people thinkit is your fault, like you personaly are in charge of decidig who gets money and how much.. and why on earth do they think shouting at you and treatening you is going to get them more money??

hey, if your getting free money, take it and dont complain!!!!! if you want more money... GET A JOB!! I was on benefits for 5 years and i worked part time (declared of course) as soon as my son was old enough to be left..... i understand that some ppl cant work and thats why theyare given more money..Pensions annoy me though.. why did i get free money and my rent and council tax paid, my grandad gets taxed (twice) on his pension and still has to pay rent and council tax... he worked and paid tax and nico... ridiculous!!!!!

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Inland Revenue Enquiry Centres have never had that and, believe me, there were times when they should have. We used to have a Chinese "lady" who came into the Warrington office. Her English wasn't very good except when it came to swearing and obscenities, in which she was fluent, and she assaulted at least 2 members of staff. She was, eventually, banned from the premises so she would just open the door and spit on the carpet before leaving again. It wouldn't have been so bad but her queries, usually, had nothing to do with tax. She used to come to the tax office about her Council Tax, her Housing Benefit, her electricity bills, you name it......! :(

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Complete shambles.

The ID card scheme must be dead now, we cannot trust this or any government with so much information about ourselves.

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Just as I suspected, it is now emerging that it was not the sole responsibility of a "junior official" to download and despatch the files. It was done on the orders of an assistant director.

I have already mentioned the word scapegoat and I hope the assistant director is now at home scouring the local paper's employment section.

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i am actually pro id cards......

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i dont have a bank account because i cant prove who i am....... if i had an id card i could...

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they wouldnt get very far as me.. i have no credit, no bank account etc...

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i have a po account.. basically you can have your benefits put in there and thats it

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I was wondering how an AO or EO or even HEO or Search Engine Optimization could have copied all those details over.

Basically it is a shambles and I would hope the guilty people (as it isn't just one person) are punished properly for it.

(I have been downgraded in the last 2 weeks for leaving my access card in a broken drawer :mad:)

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Is anyone actually suprised that the goverment have yet again made a huge mess of something very simple. Its ridiculous how many times can things like this happen before the goverment hold there hands up and admit that they have no idea what the hell they are doing. Might aswell give my bank card and pin number to a stranger. Nice to know that anyone could have mine and my girlfriends details but the worse part is they could have my sons details aswell. I think im going to have to get into politics and whip this country into shape.

Re: 15m bank details lost!!
 

Emamum,
Do you not have any utility bills at all? Water/Council Tax etc?

The Banks are governed by laws that this goverment has put in with regard to what information is required to open an account. Its part of anti Money Laundering regs called KYC(Know your Customer).

I'm anti ID cards as there is no technical reason for them. I do live safe in the knowledge that as the NHS system has shown there is a cat in hells chance that they would ever get one working properly.

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This is the letter the inland revenue are sending out to people
HM Revenue & Customs: Child Benefit customer update

Child Benefit customer update
I am writing to make a personal apology. A copy of some HM Revenue and 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 relevant, the details of the bank or building society account into which your Child Benefit is or was paid.

If you are paid through a bank or building society, they are aware of this matter. They are acting on this information, and assure us that they have appropriate safeguards in place to protect you.

As is usual in these circumstances, if you are the innocent victim of banking fraud you will not have to pay, but you may want to take some precautionary steps to protect yourself. If you receive bills, invoices or receipts or see entries in your statements for goods or services which you have not ordered you should contact your bank or building society immediately. In addition, do not give out personal or account details if anyone contacts you unexpectedly. Instead take a note of their name and number, and if you are at all suspicious contact your bank or building society. If your password uses any of your personal data, for example your child’s name or date of birth, you may also wish to consider changing any passwords you use.

The advice of banks is there is no need for customers to ask for a new account or to contact their bank or building society. Your Child Benefit payments will continue to be paid as before and you do not need to contact HMRC. However if you experience any problems, in the receipt of your Child Benefit payments, please contact HMRC on 0845 302 1444 between 8am and 8pm on any day of the week (closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day).

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 a loss can never happen again.

Dave Hartnett

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What something difficult like a senior person actually delivering them by hand personally to another senior person at the other end?

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Why can't you prove who you are?

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you usually need a driving licence or passport these days to prove who you are!!
stupid innit?

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To open a bank account you need something with your signature on as Panther says. When I went to open one a few years ago they wrote to my employer to verify my signature.

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That letter is still cold comfort & reassurance to families who have entrusted our Gov to look after & protect the publics sensitive information, this may effect some people claiming or registering their details in future & mainly has lost public confidence in the PM & the Gov.

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you would think that its their money we are drawing out!!

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they can also ask for a utility bill or the like to prove yer address, which is dafter still if it aint your house.:rolleyes:

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Unless they have got more lax recently that wouldn't help because they need a copy of your signature:(

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it should all be done by thumb print, no matter where ya go just stick ya thumb on a scanner and voila!!!

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Only its been proved that its not that difficult to take a copy of someones print and create a latex 'finger glove' that would suggest you did something you didn't

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Seems nothing is fraud proof then:rolleyes:

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only problem with that is the dept in question would probably lose everyones again, hence the reason for this thread!:rolleyes:

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Or that an increase on painful digit stealing will be on the increase:rofl38:

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Eye iris recognition would work ----unless you got cataracts

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Why should it be any different Margaret, Social engineer someone to look into a scanner(easier than yuo think) , take a copy, make a glass eye of said copy, job done

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Persuading someone to look into a scanner will be harder than lifting their prints off something they touch.

But I can see what you are getting at - nothing is infallible

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what about a full facial scan, ya cant fake a head:rolleyes:
but the trouble is with that what happens when ya get old:(

:confused:

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Perhaps using DNA will solve it ......eventually

PS perhaps tills marked 'spit here' wouldn't be acceptable :D

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A bit more info check out these links

Hacker could crack lost CDs' code in seconds - Telegraph

Junior civil servant faces sack over data fiasco - Telegraph

Timeline: Breaches and missed warnings - Telegraph

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I am glad I am not getting Child Benefit --- had a problem recently with a fraud attempt on my credit card despite my meticulous attempts at card security

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That makes frightening reading!!

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This could see the end to Brown's government.
I am a socialist but don't like him --- bet Cherie is having a good chuckle

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now if they had kept all the child benefit books we wont be having this problem!

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the problem with the books was that they were kept in your hand bag, which made them easy to lose or steal and signitures are easy forge (this happened to me)

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All the Benefit books were subject to massive fraud by forgery.
This system would be safer IF THEY TAKE PROPER PRECAUTIONS

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It was never really credible that someone of low grade would have copied the files without authority because the request wouldn't just have gone into the CBO as an ordinary piece of post. Any such request would be emailed to the director in charge of operations who would cascade it down. They are now saying the "junior official" mailed it incorrectly - so it's all his fault. Any director worth his/her salary would have given precise instructions how such sensitive material was to be sent. Poor Joe Bloggs was obviously told simply, "When you've done it, send them to NAO".

How could they downgrade you, Stanaccy? I've heard of various disciplinary actions but downgrading was never an option, were you on temporary promotion?