'Data guardians' keep a watch over HMRC

Scores of "data guardians" have been employed to protect HM Revenue & Customs from a repeat of the child benefit data scandal.

HMRC has appointed 37 guardians to monitor data handling and transfer, financial secretary to the Treasury, Jane Kennedy, told parliament.

The guardians' role protecting HMRC's data was previously performed by just one man, the chairman of the HMRC. It was on former chairman Paul Gray's watch that the department lost the two CDs containing the details of 25 million people last October.

Kennedy said in a written answer that "departmental security specialists" helped to train the guardians using "written material" and "awareness events".

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HMRC had sought advice on the "competencies, experience and knowledge that the role would require", she said. Ongoing training of the guardians is being funded by the HMRC.

A string of revelations about lost government data followed the HMRC data breach, including the NHS losing hundreds of thousands of patients' records, the DVLA losing three million learner drivers' details and the MoD losing hundreds of laptops.

A Whitehall-wide ban on the movement of unencrypted data was imposed in the wake of the MoD losses.

More recently, silicon.com won a significant victory in its Full Disclosure campaign to make government toughen its data protection legislation and improve the reporting of security breaches.