Their credibility is in shreds now

Published on Thursday 28 August 2008 09:03

WHEN Frederick Forsyth wrote The Day of the Jackal and used identity fraud as a way for his assassin character to cover his tracks, it all seemed so devilishly clever.

Forsyth would never have dreamed that one day stealing a person's identity could be as easy as buying a second-hand computer server from an internet auction site.

Bank account numbers, phone numbers, mothers' maiden names and signatures of one million customers of the Royal Bank of Scotland, American Express and NatWest were found on a computer which sold for the grand total of 35.88 on eBay.

If you're a customer with any of these banks then your ID may no longer be any kind of secret – certainly not a top one.

Like hundreds of thousands of other people, I'm now waiting to find out if my details were on this rogue server, given that I'm an RBS customer. If so, I wonder if I can expect a letter of apology? I've received one already this year from the Government, thanks to my child benefit details going AWOL through another computer catastrophe.

That time it was because discs were "lost in the post" – as if that excuse ever washes when you're sending out a cheque.

What would be the collective term for a set of these letters? A conspiracy? A cock-up? Perhaps I could have them framed or turn them into an art installation a la Tracey Emin, entitled My Stolen Life, but then maybe I'm supposed to shred them.

After all we're constantly being warned about the dangers of identity theft. We're told that the only way to protect ourselves against such a crime is to reduce every piece of paper on which our personal details are printed to a pulp, before sticking it in the recycling bin – just in case someone steals our bin bags. We're told never, even under pain of death, to reveal our pin numbers to anyone – least of all to those random e-mailers from Nigeria.

RBS has even gone so far as sending out special calculators to those who use its online banking service, so they can generate specific codes for customers every time they log on.

So we do our bit. We cover our tracks like the Jackal, and then suddenly it's all for nought as some negligent berk decides not to wipe a hard disk before a computer is flogged, or leaves the safety of vital details to the postal service, or just forgets to pick-up their laptop from the storage rack of the train, or their memory stick falls out their pocket.

The most worrying thing is that these losses of information are all so random.

Identity fraud may well cost the UK an astounding 1.7 billion a year, thanks in the main to the proliferation of social networking websites, the growth of online banking, and the explosion of internet shopping, but if your details are not secure in these places, then that's a price you pay as an individual. You do not expect the Government or your bank to be quite so cavalier with such vital information.

Yet one in four data breaches in the UK occur within government departments, which could account for 44,000 of the 178,000 victims of identity theft in Britain last year alone.

It probably also comes as a surprise to most bank customers that their information isn't even stored by the bank but, as in the case of the eBay computer, is kept by a data processing company.

Perhaps it's time to return to writing information down on bits of paper and keeping it in locked cabinets.

What it is time for is for companies to be bound by Europe-wide legislation which makes it compulsory for them to alert all customers of any security breach as soon as it happens, which the National Consumer Council is now demanding. This at least would be an incentive for companies to put proper security procedures in place.

After all, if they know that every time they lost our information we would all know about it then surely they would strive to be more careful.

All organisations storing customers' personal data need to be accountable and responsible for safeguarding the information – they can't be a weak link in the protection chain.

Unfare comparisons

BABIES being compared to wet dogs and pram-pushing mothers to drunks . . . Lothian Buses has got a lot of work to do if it wants to win back the support of many of its passengers after making comparisons like that – or ever get another customer care award.

The whole nonsensical row over whether unfoldable prams should or should not be allowed on buses to use a vacant wheelchair space should have been resolved weeks ago.

It would seem common sense has escaped bus bosses. Messrs Renilson, Smith and co need to remember who it is that pays their wages – and the fares.

Pupils meat challenge

IT'S fantastic that a group of pupils at Humbie Primary have been paying for the upkeep of a calf at one of the nearby Midlothian farms.

For children to be able to get so close to nature must have been inspiring – and making 350 out of it for the school coffers is even better.

Have they been told though that Holly the calf may well end up on their plates one day? If so, I wonder what the conversion rate to vegetarianism is at the school?