Government mislays personal details of half the nation

By Sumeet Desai

LONDON (Reuters) - The personal details of half of all Britons have been mislaid by the government, Chancellor Alistair Darling said on Tuesday, in another major blow to an administration reeling from the Northern Rock banking debacle.

The Conservatives accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government of laying 25 million people open to identity theft and bank fraud, ridiculing its competence.

The head of Britain's tax authority, Paul Gray, quit earlier and Darling described the incident as a "serious failure" on the part of the revenue collector, already embroiled in two other breaches of security.

Darling told parliament two discs containing information on 25 million Britons had disappeared after being sent through HMRC's courier, Dutch mail and parcel company TNT NV, and a police investigation was underway. There was no sign of fraud at present, he said.

"The missing information contains details of all child benefit recipients: records for 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families," Darling said.

"These records include the recipient and their children's names, addresses and dates of birth, it includes Child Benefit numbers, National Insurance Numbers, and, where relevant, bank or building society account details."

The chancellor, already under fire for the crisis at mortgage bank Northern Rock, which suffered Britain's first bank run in more than a century in September, said the details were not enough for someone to access a bank account fraudulently.

But he warned the public to monitor their accounts and guard against any unusual activity.