More disks missing from HM Revenue and Customs

It's interesting what comes out when people start asking more questions: BBC NEWS Politics Six more data discs 'are missing'.

UK loses sensitive personal data on 25m people

A lot of stuff I read about privacy incidents leaves me scratching my head in wonder. In thinking about the staggering number of privacy breaches coming out of governments (Canadian, US, UK, etc.), I wonder:

1. Are we hearing about all these incidents because employees who handle personal information for governments are idiots?
2. Are we hearing about all these incidents because governments are more likely to come clean when bad things happen?
3. Are we hearing about all these incidents because citizens are more likely to go to the media?
4. Are we hearing about all these incidents because governments handle such vast quantities of personal information, but statistically are no more likely -- per capita / per employee / per whatever -- to mishandle personal information?

I am thinking that it probably isn't #2.

The latest is from the UK. An employee of the Revenue & Customs sent CDs of unencrypted personal information about almost every child and parent in the UK via regular internal mail. The CDs never reached their destination. The minister responsible has admitted that this has occurred on multiple occasions. When are governments going to learn?

See: Taxman loses sensitive personal data on 25m people - Times Online, via UK tax-man repeatedly hemorrhages personal financial info of 25 MILLION Brits - Boing Boing.

UK: corporation tax, small companies' rate - proposed reform to the associated companies' test

HM Treasury and HMRC have published a consultation paper setting out a proposed new test for determining whether companies are associated for the purposes of the small companies' rate of corporation tax. Where a company is deemed to be associated with other companies the corporation tax thresholds are reduced. The purpose of reform (to quote from the consultation paper (at para. 3.3):

... is to provide a test that retains those aspects of the current test that work well within a new test that attributes rights held between linked persons only in circumstances where actual links between the companies make it appropriate to do so. Put broadly, the new test seeks to ensure that companies cannot be associated by an attribution of rights by mere ‘accident of circumstance’".

UK Committee calls for criminal penalties for data breaches

This is an interesting development. In response to the huge data breach in the UK (Canadian Privacy Law Blog: UK loses sensitive personal data on 25m people), the Parliamentary Justice committee is calling for criminal penalties for large data breaches. See: U.K. Needs Tougher Laws to Protect Private Data, Lawmakers Say - Bloomberg.com: U.K. & Ireland.

For some additional comments, see: IMPACT®: Data protection - more signs of unrest.

UK: online filing of accounts - HMRC and Companies House joint approach statement

HMRC and Companies House have published a statement concerning their joint approach to the online filing of accounts, the development of which was one of the recommendations in the Carter Review (2006). The statement explains:

HMRC has now decided that statutory accounts and tax computations showing the derivation from those accounts of the entries in the Company Tax Return must be delivered electronically using Inline XBRL (iXBRL) format. Inline XBRL will allow companies and agents to submit their accounts and tax computations to HMRC with all branding, stylistic and terminological preferences in the human-readable form. The use of iXBRL will be mandatory when filing accounts with HMRC as part of a Company Tax Return for all accounts prepared under the Companies Act 2006. Companies with less complex tax affairs will be able to use HMRC’s software, provided free on their website, which will allow those companies to fully meet their HMRC filing obligations after mandation.

HMRC will introduce their iXBRL service in November 2009. Companies House will add iXBRL software filing for unaudited full accounts to their service by the summer of 2010 and then continue to develop their iXBRL capability for all the main accounts types they receive by summer 2011".