Government loses 37 million items of personal data

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 7th Jan 2008

New figures put together by the Liberal Democrats show the shocking volume of personal data lost by the Government during 2007.

The biggest single loss was in November when two CDs with personal details of 25 million child benefit claimants and their parents had gone missing in the post. Other losses: The details of three million learner drivers are missing, the names, dates of birth and national insurance numbers of 45,000 people claiming benefits in West Yorkshire lost by the Government, whilst every month 80 passports are lost in the post.

The Government's inability to look after personal data securely highlights one of the major risks of its plans to introduce ID cards, which would involve millions of new records of personal information. The "shocking" total of 36,989,300 items prompted calls for the Government to kill its plans for national identity cards.

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg said, "The ID card project is now in freefall, because faith in the Government's ability to handle personal data has hit crisis point - 2007 was the worst ever year for personal privacy. We need a total rethink on data protection enforcement and an immediate end to the identity cards plan."

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