waaaw! name, address, and telephone number! Imagine how useful this information is ... for people who don't own a copy of the yellow pages!

peter, Leeds,

Hope I'm not on there, I've just recieved my L plates . Though there may not be any 'substansial risk', it is not altogether comfortable to imagine personal information of mine, of any sort, being in the hands of those who wish me harm, or even just the incompetent detail handlers in Britain and those in the USA

Sam Dennis, Cockermouth, UK

Hasn't anyone ever heard of email attachments?

Jane Rubin, New York, New York

That the government is waiting to learn whether or not there is any ... "fraudsters had got hold of the personal details" says all we need to know about the competence of the British Government under Labour.

Think of those words again... the government is does not know whether its own incompetence has led to ID thefts of its citizens.

And we are supposed to trust these fools with our iris scans, finger prints and personal history?

Edwin, Bucharest,

The situation is descending rapidly into farce with data loss by the government. One feels that it is rather pointless and hypocritical for the same government to have programs urging us all to be careful about identity theft on line when they are giving key data away in some sort of postal lottery.

There must be some sort of genuine accountability; at the moment it seems that all that ministers are prepared to offer are very lightweight excuses for these serious breaches of security. Nobody is being held publically accountable for the situation and yet one assumes someone took the decision to use sub standard (and ostensibly cheap and “highly efficient”) outsourced courier services rather than the governments own communication staff and systems in each case.

It seems to be the way of government these days; no pride in performing a job well, no honour when things go wrong and no explanation to the customer when he or she is badly let down.

Richard Taylor, Bangkok, Thailand

When HMRC write to me here in China, all letters come from Sweden!

So, there is another lot of data in possible breach of the Data Protection Act.

Is there no-one to bring this government to account and force them to go to the country? What is the Queen doing? Doesn't she have any Constitutional power to stop the descent into the mire? Her representative in Australia has.

Bill McCann, Suzhou, China

A handbag! "To lose documents once is an accident, twice is a coincedence, three times is enemy action." Oscar Wilde as usual describes it perfectly.

Anne Wotana Kaye, London, England

Brown will ensure that other departments come clean with data losses to ensure that it is not only his old department HMRC that has the problem. He wants to show that it is an overall problem and not only related to HMRC and the reorganised departments when he was totally responsible for the change.
We all know that the changes gave the departments serious operational problems and that is the reason that Paul Gray has not been sacked. If he was sacked he may tell us the truth, so Gordon Brown gives him a nice job to keep him quiet.
NICE ONE GORDON BUT YOU DO NOT FOOL US, THE PUBLIC ARE NOT THAT STUPID, SORRY.

david reardon, nuneaton, warwickshire

At this rate the Country is fast running out of personal information and data that the Government can lose and not learn yet more lessons from!
Well done New Labour you have finally found something you are good at - keep this up and who knows you may make the Guinneas book records if you are not already in it.

philip, Ipswich,

Thank goodness I'm a FLANK - full licence and no kids - but I'm sure this government will find some way to send, even as an ex-pat, my details into the 'ether' as well.

Spectacular incompetence.

Peter, Genova, Italy

UK records housed in Iowa in the States? I am sure there is a better way to keep these records in the host country and not across the pond.This is a joke right?

Tim Ferguson, Grayson, Georgia USA

Would this be the same Ruth Kelly whose road congestion charges scheme is in tatters- rejected even by labour council cronies; who created the chaos with the airports hand baggage shambles with each airport and each airline preaparing different rules; and who made such a mess of education standards for our kids that she by-passed it for her own child. Thought so, just the kind of labour hack to whom Bean would entrust the safeguarding of your driving license details, and handled in line with her usual woeful standards.
Perhaps she should new be supervised by Mr Darling, who can guide her in proper labour standards of disaster creation.

Doug, Glasgow,

What a crock of .......
There is always backup.
Well, there always was in the systems I designed 20 years ago.
I dont think system procedures have changed that much.

Louis Blanc, Walsall, UK

Name, postal address & telephone number and it does not appear to present “a substantial risk” to individuals - well if that's the case why don't all MPs post their home addresses, personal phone/mobile numbers on the web and see what the consequences are!

If the purpose of the data is known, i.e. just passed the driving theory test then it provides all the information to attempt a postal scam requesting money. No doubt the theory test reference will be quoted which will make the scam more realistic.

Time and time again this happens - I so wish an election had been called . . . .

Paul, Leeds,

The whole of this Government, and for that matter the Opposition, are "UNFIT FOR PURPOSE". But clearly they are unwilling to let the electorate demonstrate the fact to them.

Neil, Gloucestershire, England

There's just no end to it is there ? The incompetence begins at the top of the government and ends up with the bloke who cleans the bogs. None of them do their jobs properly.

Phil de Buquet, Newport, England

At work no personal data is allowed to leave Europe unless the individual gives their permission as the US is not signed up to the European Data Protection standards. How come this data left the UK when the Govt thought to impose these same standards on UK industry buts seems to ignore these same standards itself.

John Holmes, Glasgow, Scotland

terrific!
is there no end to this government's incompetence?

grindlestheelder, London, england

Iowa? Why was our government storing ANY data anywhere other than within our own borders? Exactly how can there be any appropriate oversight and security of data relevant to British Citizens, or any observance of the Data Protection Act, if the data is on another continent, and presumably subject only to American Data Protection laws?

Perhaps there are some private contractors in Nigeria or Turkmenistan that our government in its wisdom can hire to store data for the incredibly dangerous ID cards scheme.

Andrew Fernie, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire

The government will doubtless continue to blame junior personnel for not following procedures. The sad truth is that its information systems are fatally flawed from a security point of view. For this ministers and senior civil servants should take full responsibility. Now who was the minister responsible for the amalgamation of Customs and Revenue???

Gervas Douglas, Andorra la Vella,

Isn't it forbidden to send personal data outside of the EU?

MarkS, Leeds,