Data Protection Minister Uninformed about the Missing Information on 25M People
The amount of mistakes the British government created in order to
protect personal information critically increased when Michael Wills, the data
protection minister, revealed that he had been not informed about the
disappearance of the disks with information that included personal data of 25
million people. It is worth reminding that Revenue & Customs lost the disks
and Mr. Wills got acknowledged with the happening from the statement reported
by Alistair Darling to MPs in the Commons.
When the data protection minister was asked if he was informed in advance about the stolen confidential information, which the media revealed, he responded MPs and peers that he find out about the leaks for the first time from the reports made by the media.
Lord Onslow, the Conservative peer, was curious about
Wills knowing about the warnings coming from a professor from
He mentioned that his job was to monitor the legislative framework for data protection and not make sure that other departments, having operational independence, met the requirements.
He considered it "perfectly acceptable" that he was not informed in advance about the leak of the Revenue and Customs discs. This is because the main thing that had to be done was to determine the level of the issue.
He mentioned that a review regarding the data protection legislation had been stated "before any of this happened" and the government made everything in the light of the review.
Richard Thomas, information commissioner, appealed to greater powers in order to enforce the Data Protection Act. This includes the enforcement of spot checks on government departments as well as other bodies that process data. Wills mentioned that this month he had been to visit the commissioner and waited for in depth proposals.
Wills stated that there is a necessity to look through the ID cards again. "I think we are obviously going to have a look at the national identity register again in the light of this."