Chaos across the pond

It was a bad week in England when it was disclosed that the personal identity and banking details of 25 million Britons had been lost in the government's internal mail system. The outrage and fallout was similar to several cases that have occurred in the United States when both public and private sector data went missing.

The British government says that it does not know how two compact discs containing the material disappeared. That is not too different from some circumstances here in this country. And it raises the issue of how to protect data around the world at a time when electronic files have become the norm everywhere, not the exception. "Half the country will be very anxious about the safety of their family and the security of their bank accounts, and the whole country will be wondering how on Earth the government allowed this to happen," said the opposition Conservative Party's shadow chancellor, George Osborne.

More importantly, the world is still in its infancy in protecting electronic data and merely saying it is protected does not make it so. There are plenty of tools on the market to restrict access to data, to back it up and to keep it protected. The big question is: are you protecting yours? You should take a second look at what is under wraps and inaccessible to anyone but a very small circle. -Judi