In the space of just six weeks, HMRC has admitted to losing a disc holding details of 15,000 Standard Life customers, as well as a laptop containing sensitive information of thousands of taxpayers. And now 25 million more citizens are at risk of ID fraud, as benefit records go missing.

The US government has already mandated encryption protection for sensitive data on discs, laptops and workstations – why not the UK, before even more people are left vulnerable to ID fraud? Do we really need to make it so easy for criminals?

Gary Clark