HM Revenue and Customs leaks private data
3:07pm, 20th November 2007
Confidential details of 15 million child benefit recipients are on computer discs lost by HM Revenue and Customs, the BBC understands.
What will come of this? There might be some political kerfuffle in the House of Commons and the newspapers, somebody might resign, a department or two might be reshuffled, and a few unlucky individuals might become victims of identity crime. The only thing we know for certain is that this will happen again, and will keep happening until the government stops putting its faith in gigantic centralised databases, and the public at large stops putting its faith in gigantic centralised government.
Now is an excellent time to re-read The Illustrated Road to Serfdom (18 pages, 3 minutes reading time).
