Who knows what else is out there?

It appears from this report in the Guardian that it was a junior civil servant who made the cock-up and sent the data to the National Audit Office. Apparently

"This individual should not have been involved. It was none of their business. They should have forwarded it on to someone else - another group of civil servants at a more senior level."

"The HMRC office is a huge office with 200 people and there is a nominated team that send items between us and other departments. The individual in question had nothing to do with that team and the it was completely outside their job remit."... ...

And on it goes about how they shouldn't have done this and etc and etc.

This is just not the point. No official should have the capability to do this in HMRC without having gone through a whole range of audited steps. No official, however high in the organisation, should have the ability to do this on a whim at any time. It is a complete breakdown of Security and not just a case of "not following procedures".

It is not just a case of a silly person doing something silly it is about an organisation that is criminally incompetent.

The only saving grace is that we know about this incident.

What about the untraced copies of data that could have taken by, it seems, any member of this organisation and have already been supplied to those who could profit from this data. Who can tell what is out there if it was only procedures that are supposed to stop this type of data extraction.

Civil servant who made the 'colossal error' | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics

"He is Scum and should be treated as Scum"

Not my words but borrowed again from Big Bro? who borrowed them from a murdered child's mother in respect of a Paedophile who, as reported in the local evening paper.

"Has now joined the queue of money-grabbing cons hoping to cash in on the fact they have to slop out."

See my previous post on similar case.

Convict takes Executive to court over 'embarrassing' telephone warning

Apparently a convicted criminal is taking the Executive to court over the message played before phone calls are accepted on outgoing calls.
The message is as follows

"This call originates from a Scottish prison. It will be logged and may be recorded and/or monitored. If you do not wish to accept this call, please hang up."

You have to feel sorry for the poor guy whose only crime, this time, involved holding a knife at the throat of a shop manageress and is serving a minor sentence of 21 years at the moment.

Not only is he being allowed to take this to court but You and I are paying for it.

After a lengthy battle to secure thousands of pounds in legal aid, Stewart Potter, 43, has taken a case to the Court of Session in Edinburgh, claiming the phone message "is an ... embarrassing reminder to his family" that he is calling from prison.

He has served previous sentences of four, six and eight years and was given a nine-year term in 2001 for armed robbery.

In 2002, he stood trial for another robbery, committed just before the nine-year sentence had been imposed.

In that case, he threatened the manageress of a Glasgow off- licence with a knife, then ordered her and a customer into a toilet. He fled with £292 but was arrested after police used CS gas spray to disarm him.

He was jailed for 12 years, to begin at the end of the nine-year sentence.

Convict takes Executive to court over 'embarrassing' telephone warning