23 November 2007
The loss of personal details for 25 million Child Benefit recipients put other welfare payments under threat this week, after Revenue & Customs offices were forced to change security questions for tax credit enquiries.
Following Chancellor Alistair Darling's admission that personal details of all Child Benefit claimants and their children had been mislaid, Public Finance learnt that R&C offices were forced to adopt emergency procedures to process tax credit enquiries.
Staff working at tax credit centres usually ask callers to identify themselves using information that is contained on the two lost discs. As a precaution against fraud, callers were asked for other details, but many did not know the answers and were asked to call back.
An R&C spokeswoman told PF: 'We keep our security questions under review to protect our customers… any questions we ask are designed so they can be answered by a genuine claimant.'
Meanwhile, the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, has welcomed his new powers to conduct unannounced 'spot-checks' on organisations handling personal data.
'Ultimately this will ensure better compliance with the law and protect people's data,' he said. Thomas also called for major security breaches to be made a criminal offence.
Darling revealed the 'catastrophic' breach at the R&C's Washington office in the Northeast on November 20 – almost a month after the data first disappeared in an internal postal system.
The Metropolitan Police is leading an investigation, and two separate inquiries have been commissioned.
PFnov2007
