Darling to wind up police search for lost personal data discs

The search to find two computer discs containing the personal details of 25million Britons is to be wound up imminently amid little likelihood they will be found.

Unnamed police sources told a national paper on Friday that it is unlikely the missing information will be recovered by their investigators in the short term. They added they can no longer justify the resources allocated to the search – 32 detectives were brought in – which has cost more than £500,000 and proved fruitless.

Alistair Darling will therefore announce it will be officially abandoned before the Christmas holidays, in a statement to the House of Commons expected today. But the chancellor will unveil new measures to reduce the risk of future data blunders despite not knowing the cause of the mass data loss at HM Revenue & Customs, the Financial Times reported.

Ministers will follow-up the announcement by explaining urgent steps are being taken to prevent personal details on the CDs being used for identity fraud. These include an early-warning system - monitored by the Serious Organised Crime Agency - that will flag up any unusual transactions linked to the dataset.

The system, thought to be built on a centralised structure, should alert SOCA if any of the dataset is used in a range of activities, including suspicious transaction and paedophile sites.

The chancellor has said the dataset contains the names, addresses; dates of birth, child benefit numbers, national insurance numbers and bank details of 25million people.

He will today publish the findings of Kieran Poynter, chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, who was tasked to review the data security of HMRC, which accepted the resignation of its chairman, Paul Grey, in wake of the fiasco.

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