Lost disc fiasco could scupper ID card scheme

Michael Wills, the data protection minister, said the loss of the personal details of 25million individuals had been "deplorable".

He said a review will now be carried out into the way officials store and use data - putting the future of the £5.6billion ID cards scheme under review.

Campaigners hope the Revenue and Customs debacle, where data discs went missing, will give Ministers a reason to shelve or scale down the programme.

The plans call for a database storing 49 pieces of personal information on every citizen.

Mr Wills, giving evidence to a Parliamentary committee, said: "We are going to obviously have to look at the national identity register in the light of all this. We are going to have to learn the lessons. Everything will have to be scrutinised and then we will assess it again."

Leading academics have rounded on the Government's "fairytale view" of the technology needed to make the scheme work on its introduction in 2009.

In a letter to MPs, Professor Ross Anderson and Dr Richard Clayton warned lives would be ruined if information from the ID database went missing.

The Cambridge computer experts said that if iris or fingerprint scans fell into the wrong hands the victim would suffer a lifetime of fraud.

Unlike with bank accounts, the individual would have no way of changing their details. Ministers claim the biometric data will protect against fraud, crime and terrorism.

But opponents of the scheme - launched last year by Defence Secretary Des Browne when he was Immigration Minister - say this case is unproven.

In their letter to Parliament's joint committee on human rights, the Cambridge academics - backed by Oxford University internet expert Ian Brown - said biometrics prewillsented a risk. "These [the Government's] assertions are based on a fairytale view of the capabilities of the technology," they added.

They added it was highly unlikely that everyone would be able to provide biometrics, with the elderly, disabled and some ethnic groups already found to have trouble.

The letter adds: "Biometric checks at the time of usage do not of themselves make any difference whatsoever to the possibility of the type of disaster that has just occurred at HMRC.

"This type of data leakage, which occurs regularly across Government, continue to occur until there is a radical change in the culture both of system designers and system users.

"The inclusion of biometric data in the national identity register would make such a record even more valuable to fraudsters and thieves as it would - if leaked or stolen - provide the key to all uses of the person's biometrics for the rest of his or her life.

"Once lost, it would be impossible to issue a person with new fingerprints. One cannot change one's fingers as one can a bank account."

Phil Booth, of the NO2ID cards campaign, said: "The Government is desperately fighting to hang on to ID cards and, more significantly, the database behind them but these experts blow claims that your personal information can be secured with biometrics out of the water.

"Adding more data, like fingerprints, will make records even more valuable to fraudsters and thieves when - not if - they are lost and leaked."

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: 'Where there are lessons to be learnt from last week's events at HMRC it is right that we learn them.'

He said a review was being carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers and that Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell was investigating data security across Whitehall.

Mr Byrne added: "This House is the guarantor of our liberties and that does include the right to privacy."