That'll Teach Them

Norwich Union Building Society has been fined £1.26m by the Financial Services Authority. This is because their inadequate security measures allowed identity theft of their customers. In fact, customers lost £3.3 million collectively, largely due to people calling the call centre and pretending to be customers. One wonders how much Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is likely to be fined, bearing in mind that their inadequate security measures led to the loss of 25 million public records.

The Financial Services Authority is a "non-governmental body". That is to say, it operates independently of the government, and it is not funded with public money. It is in fact funded by the bodies it regulates. How does that work? No idea. It does seem however that the FSA is "accountable to Treasury Ministers". Again, no idea what that means really, but that is what it says on their website. I note that it is a government website incidentally. Exactly how independent is this body? My point is this; how can the FSA come to an independent decision about HMRC transgressions if they are, "accountable to Treasury Ministers"? And, if the HMRC was to be fined, where would the money go? Back into government coffers? I doubt that the HMRC comes under the umbrella of the FSA. They are not a financial body as such. Interesting though that Norwich Union can be fined for poor security.

And, talking of losing data, guess what - the government have lost some more it seems. This time it's the personal details of 3 million learner drivers. The data went missing on a hard drive which vanished somewhere in the US. Ruth Kelly, poison dwarf transport secretary says the risk is low. Well, she would, wouldn't she. I say every time the government misplaces our data, they have to pick a cabinet member at random from a hat and publish that person's personal details on the internet. I'm talking bank account numbers, personal address, credit card details, phone numbers, medical record etc. That would teach the bastards the importance of data security.

The Dragon has been flying solo on the British rail network today and experienced all it has to offer in terms of overpriced seats, overly rude staff, late trains, cancelled trains etc. She feels a better person for doing it I think. She went all the way to Cardiff with Dumpy in a push chair and watched her friend graduate. Dumpy enjoyed it apparently.

I'll put up some pictures tomorrow of Dumpy in his Monsoon outfit. He looks cool as.