I don't think HMRC management has yet embraced how to protect data (HMRC fiasco places data protection under the spotlight).

The letter of apology that HMRC sent to eight million parents of  17 million children contains excess data such as parents' national insurance numbers and children's benefit numbers.

So now there are eight million letters that can be used for identity theft.

Couldn't the letters have been sent out without these bureaucratic reference numbers? We don't need this information to know who our children are.

Keith Appleyard