The Castle of Aauugghhh…
If you were really, really cynical, you could build a brilliant conspiracy out HMRC’s astonishing behaviour.
The lost discs contain an enormous amount of information which would be useful to identity thieves . The information on the discs is password protected but not encrypted so it really isn’t very secure at all. (If the Conservatives had been in power, the password would probably be 1234 but that’s by the way.) The government have created what is essentially a Holy Grail for organised criminals and identify fraudsters. The difference being that these discs definitely do exist, of course.
If they do fall into the wrong hands, it’s almost certainly going to lead an increase in identity spoofing and other identity related crimes.
And if identity related crimes are on the increase, well, that’ll just confirm the need for the government to implement it’s secure and infallible National Identity Register and ID Card scheme…
In reality, the idea that this was in any way intentional is a non-starter. You only needed to see Alistair Darling’s face as he addressed the House to know that. In fact, I have marked this with the introduction of a new post category - “Incompetence”. Incompetence on a really extraordinary scale was what this undoubtedly was.
If in due course we did see an increase in identity related crimes because of this however, who would really be surprised if the government argued that this was a clear sign that we should trust them with even more of our own personal details?
(Changing the subject completely, blogging might be slightly hit and run here for a few more days. That “time” has a lot to answer for, I tell you.)
