The Great Zero Challenge

[PeteM]

ken wrote  on 8-09-08 12:18:
> Ian Batten wrote:
>>>
>>> For HMG use only wiping systems listed at the link below should be 
>>> used, which have been tested to be suitable:
>>
>>
>> I think that at the moment HMG might prefer to give its own staff 
>> advice on beams, prior to giving the rest of us advice on motes.  
>> We're soon going to reach a point where you're unusual _not_ to have 
>> had your data lost by the government.
> 
> AFAICT HMG staff almost never lose data. Its nearly always the 
> contractors or consultants or whoever that they are forced to outsource 
> to (and have been forced to outsource to for about thirty years) because 
> the government doesn't believe that its own employees are as competent 
> as 23-year-old recent economics graduates who did a six week course in 
> Business Analysis and want to grow up to be Management Consultants
> 

The biggest loss, of the child benefit records, was perpetrated by an 
employee of HMRC who IIRC posted it to the auditors and then forgot all 
about it. Of course you can try and blame the courier service, but if 
you do that then you can always find an "outsourced service" somewhere 
in the chain that can conveniently take the blame for everything and 
thus exonerate civil servants.

In my experience government agencies like HMRC and DWP are utterly 
arrogant about the powers they have and their lack of any accountability 
for misusing them. I would expect their attitude to data security to be 
exactly the same; more so, in fact, since they are pretty unlikely to be 
found out.

--
Peter Mitchell