Trust: how would we survive without it? Mal Fletcher comments

Mal Fletcher

Trust is central to every level of human relationships - from the most intimate personal relationships, to the more tenuous links between governments and their citizens.

As the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary, the story of their long marriage provided a powerful testimony to the benefits of trust. They must have worked hard to build the trusting commitment they now enjoy, and their example feels inspirational in a world of so much divorce.

Sadly, on the very day of their anniversary, people across Britain began to hear news of a terrible example of the abuse of trust and what it can do to the fabric not just of relationships but of society.

The British government announced yesterday that personal records of 25 million people have been exposed to the risk of ID fraud, through the mishandling of sensitive data CDs.

The first casualty in this debacle is not financial, but moral; the trust of a nation in its government has been badly damaged.

Trust is not like a photograph, an image that appears in an instant of time. It is like a painting, the full shape of which develops over time as layer upon layer of colour is applied.

Relationships, at any level, always start with a blank canvas. Each party knows next to nothing about the other. Over time, as each proves their accountability and competence, trust is built up in layers.

Trust is perhaps the hardest thing to build into a relationship, any relationship, and probably the easiest to destroy, as this case illustrates all too well.

The government is being grilled about its competence both in Westminster and in the media.

People are demanding to know how government workers can treat private information so flippantly; especially when that government is planning to add to the amount of personal information on file by introducing personal ID cards for every citizen.

Apparently, the saga began when the National Audit Office (NAO) routinely requested from HM Revenue and Customs certain information for their national audit on child benefits.

Someone within Revenue and Customs burnt the information on two data CDs and sent them through the mail - unregistered, so there is no ability to track them.

Not only does it seem incredible that the personal information of 7 million families could be sent through the mail with no more security than a common Christmas card, it turns out that the information on the CDs went beyond what was requested.

Their request was for names, national insurance numbers and child benefit numbers. Sending that through the mail would have been bad enough! But the missing CDs also feature some details on bank and building society account numbers.