Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal Democrats

Maesteg Liberal Democrat Focus Team call for end to ID cards

Liberal Democrats in Maesteg have backed calls to the government to abandon plans to make people carry identity cards.

Leading the call locally is former Liberal Democrat Assembly Candidate for Ogmore, Martin Plant. He decided to voice his concerns after Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg MP published figures showing that 37 million pieces of personal information on UK citizens were lost in 2007, mostly by the Government.

The law bringing in ID cards has already been passed by Labour and soon most citizens will have to pay for an identity card.

"The expensive identity cards scheme is based on the government storing large amounts of information about each one of us on a central database," said Martin Plant.

"But in 2007 the Government stumbled from one data loss crisis to another. The worst example came in November when the Government lost the personal details of all 25 million families with children. That has put the privacy of 19,500 families in Bridgend and Ogmore area at risk.

One of the many families that recieved a letter from HM Revenue & Customs Department apologising for the loss of personal information was that of local resident Ian Jones, 'It's just complete incompetence. This Government has exposed my family partcularly my children to criminals that want to exploit our personal information for the purposes of fraud. It is just unforgivable. I no longer have confidence in a Government that want us to put even more information in a ID Card that won't work.'

Martin Plant continued with saying "The dangers of putting so much information about every citizen in the UK into one central database are clear to everyone except, it seems, the Government. Ministers are in denial when they argue that the information will be safe and people's privacy will not be undermined.

"I am very pleased that new Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg is leading the battle to end the ID cards scheme. Liberal Democrats in Maesteg and arcross the Borough of Bridgend are right behind him. The plan to make everyone carry a piece of plastic should be buried before it ends up as another expensive government fiasco.

"The scheme will be a bureaucratic nightmare. It won't prevent illegal working. It won't help stop crime or terrorism. If the government really wants to make an impact on crime, terrorism and illegal immigration, the money it has earmarked for this scheme would be far better spent on more police and intelligence officers. That is what the Liberal Democrats would do."

ENDS

Notes to editors:

Photos: Local campaigner, Martin Plant

Local Maesteg resident, Ian Jones

On 6th January 2008, the Liberal Democrats published the following list of data lost in 2007:

Date

Events

Number of peoples' data compromised

22 February

80 passports are lost in the post every month, it's revealed

1,000

28 February

A laptop containing details of Worcestershire County council employees was stolen.

16,000

23 March

A CD which contained personal details relating to past and present Torbay Council staff and councillors vanished in the post

6,500

27 March

Halifax allowed details of mortgage customers to go astray after the briefcase holding the documents was stolen from a member of staff's car.

13,000

16 April

A laptop stolen from the King's Mill Hospital in Nottinghamshire contained data on children aged between eight months and eight years, including their names, addresses and dates of birth.

11,000

27 April

MTAS published the details of junior doctors' medical applications online

1,000

3 May

A laptop computer containing personal and bank details of people at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust was stolen.

5,000

9 May

Standard Life admitted some of its customers may have been affected by a security breach in which individuals' personal financial information was sent to others by mistake.

300

14 May

Marks & Spencer company laptop theft was stolen

26,000

20 May

TK Maxx reveals world's largest ever credit card hackers fraud which affected some UK customers. Estimated numbers affected - worldwide total 200m

5,000,000

7 June

Details of Bank of Scotland mortgage customers were on a disk lost in the post.

62,000

14 June

A computer containing personal details of hundreds of staff at the Eden project was stolen from a car.

500

30 August

Monster job-seeking site hacked and contact details of all users stolen

3,100,000

18 September

A former employee downloaded confidential information from a Pfizer computer system without the company's knowledge.

34,000

21 September

St Edmundsbury Council staff member had a laptop with staff details stolen

1,400

3 November

HMRC admitted a courier had lost the records of Standard Life customers.

15,000

5 November

Personal details and scans of patients' retinas on a stolen laptop taken from St Julian's GP surgery in Newport

1,000

20 November

Alistair Darling reveals the loss of all data on child benefit claimants

25,000,000

27 November

Newcastle City Council accidentally compromised the personal data of credit card holders because of a computer server error by a member of staff

50,000

27 November

Abbott, the £40bn pharmaceutical giant lost current and ex-employee records containing names, bank account details, and National Insurance numbers, in transit to its payroll office in Queenborough, Kent

64,000

29 November

An employee with online finance firm loans.co.uk sold on sensitive customer files.

250,000

29 November

A package containing details of pension benefit statements was lost after being sent from the Scottish Public Pensions Agency to NHS Greater Glasgow

200

2 December

CDs with the names, addresses, dates of birth and National Insurance numbers of thousands of people receiving benefits up and down the country were found at the home of a former contractor to the Department for Work and Pensions.

18,000

5 December

The names, dates of birth and national insurance numbers of people claiming housing and council tax benefits in Kirklees, West Yorkshire were lost en route to the government

45,000

5 December

Names, addresses and ages of Warwickshire teenagers went missing in the post. The details of pupils taking vocational courses alongside their school work went missing after they were posted to a consultancy firm.

200

7 December

Personal details of drivers were sent to strangers by mistake by the DVLA

1,200

8 December

Bank account numbers, national insurance numbers, names, addresses and dates of birth were on a laptop stolen from a Citizens Advice Bureau staff member's car in Belfast

60,000

11 December

Leeds Building Society has mislaid data containing the personal information of its entire workforce.

1,000

12 December

Trade unions on Merseyside also revealed that personal details health authority staff had been sent out to private firms.

1,800

16 December

Reports emerge that a HMRC worker reported in October that his laptop containing data was stolen from a car

2,000

17 December

Ruth Kelly admits the loss of learner drivers' data when a hard drive was lost in Iowa.

3,000,000

20 December

HMRC lost the details of Countrywide Assured policyholders.

6,500

21 December

Skipton, the financial giant, had a laptop stolen with customer details on.

14,000

26 December

Nine NHS trusts admitted losing confidential patient records

168,000

27 December

Devon and Cornwall police left a floppy disk with employee details in a computer sent for recycling

6,000

27 December

Northern Ireland DVLA lost details on two discs being sent to the Swansea DVLA.

7,700

TOTAL

36,989,300