Although a major police effort is underway to retrieve the disks, the lost media have forced millions of U.K. bank customers to carefully monitor their accounts.
The disks, which contain welfare information on almost half the population, went missing last month when Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the U.K.'s equivalent of the IRS, sent the disks to the National Audit Office (NAO).
Although password-protected, the disks are apparently unencrypted, and include the details of millions of benefits recipients, as well as the names, addresses, and dates of birth of most U.K. children.The disks also contain bank account details for millions of parents and guardians, as well as national insurance numbers, which are similar to U.S. Social Security numbers.
Such is the scale of the snafu that credit checking firm Experian warns that millions of children could be at risk of fraud for years. Fraudsters may even wait until children reach 18 before applying for credit cards in their names, according to media reports.
At this stage, there is still no indication that the disks have fallen into the wrong hands, according to government officials.
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