UK's families put on fraud alert

This BBC article reports that "two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing. The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people."

This must be especially frightening to those who had provided the government with bank account information for direct deposit.

"Chancellor Alistair Darling said there was no evidence the data had gone to criminals - but urged people to monitor bank accounts 'for unusual activity'."

"The chancellor blamed mistakes by junior officials at HMRC [Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs], who he said had ignored security procedures when they sent information to the National Audit Office (NAO) for auditing... The package was not recorded or registered. It appears the data has failed to reach the addressee in the NAO."

It seems that some blame should also attach to those who made it possible for this vast trove of data to be compromised by "junior officials."