Is your data safe with the government?
In another seriously embarrassing gaffe it has been announced that a memory stick containing highly confidential passwords to the government's main social service website was found in a pub car park. This resulted in the government website being closed down for a short while and has yet again increased concern amongst the UK public with regards to government services.
When you consider that the government holds the most confidential of information on everybody in the UK this latest security lapse may have serious consequences for the future. There are literally millions of UK residents who claim a variety of social security payments with bank account details, names and addresses accessible by many different government departments. Online fraud and off-line fraud is becoming a serious issue and no doubt the fraudsters will be targeting government departments in the future as many seem very lax on data security.
This has led to increased concern about the value for money UK taxpayers are receiving with many private firms heavily involved in a number of these embarrassing data security lapses. Taxpayers seem more concerned at the fact that very few companies seem to lose their lucrative government contracts as and when data is lost, leading to accusations of a taxpayer funded gravy train.
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