David Stevenson (Letters, November 21) is correct. The casual disregard with which HM Revenue & Customs has treated the personal details of 25 million people does, indeed, blow a hole in assertions that centralising information on government databases enhances security.

Half the population will now have to pay particularly close attention to their bank accounts (I would recommend that everyone affected insist on a new account number from their bank), while people who do not wish to be found by ex-partners will fear the possibility that their names and addresses may end up being published on the internet.

This hole has been blown many times before, of course, although usually on more limited scale. Only 15,000 Standard Life customers were affected when HMRC decided to pop a CD of their pension details in the post. And a mere 13,000 civil servants were affected when their data was stolen from a payroll database at the Department of Work and Pensions.

The 2000 people with their ISA details stolen last month are barely worth a mention now. Nobody seems even to notice when the Independent Police Complaints Commissioner worries about long-standing problems with unauthorised access to data on the Police National Computer, and the DVLA is still selling data from the driver database to private companies.

But the scale of this latest fiasco is beyond belief. The Chancellor has already tried to blame junior officials and attention will certainly turn to the methods by which data is transferred in future. But there are deeper questions.

Why should any civil servant - junior, senior or permanent secretary - be able to access and copy the bank details of half the population? And, given that they had access, how could any civil servant possibly think that it would be acceptable to transfer such information to anyone else, by any method?

Whether the data is transferred on unencrypted discs in the back of a commercial van (as in this case) or via quantum cryptographic cables with the end points under armed guard, such data should never have been transferred from the host system.

This must now, surely, be the end of the government's drive towards collection and centralisation of personal information. It is inconceivable that the national identity register could go ahead after this.

But the government already holds vast amounts of data about each of us - data which is not adequately protected.

Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, has been warning for several years that personal data is not adequately protected. NO2ID is now calling for a full and independent audit, to establish precisely what information the government holds about each of us, how that information is used and how that data is shared between government departments.

The government has been promiscuous with our personal data for far too long. It is time for some protection.

Geraint Bevan, NO2ID Scotland, 3e Grovepark Gardens, Glasgow.

Good to see Paul Gray, head of HMRC, upholding the finest traditions of the New Labour civil service and insisting on taking the jump in place of his political masters. We must hope his loyalty is rewarded with a soft landing - perhaps into a senior academic job.

I suspect, though, that it is too little, too late and that we are seeing Gordy's Black Wednesday. Tragic in its way - that long wait, the abandonment of all principles only to be rewarded by seven months of power followed by two and a half years of clinging to office.

Gordon McNeill, 6 Glen Place, Largs.

All child benefit was once paid at the Post Office but the government, in its wisdom, decided it was both cheaper and safer to pay child benefit through the banks. At the same time, it also decided, for much the same reasons, that its interdepartmental mail should be handled by private companies rather than the Royal Mail. To put it another way, market forces - ie, private profit - would be the driving force for "efficiency".

Those who insisted on retaining their child benefit payments at the Post Office must now be heaving sighs of relief. Should the missing computer discs, which were handled by TNT, fall into the hands of criminals, the blame will lie entirely with the government which, in its zeal to close as many branches of the Post Office network as it can, has demonstrated, yet again, that those who know the price of everything know the value of nothing.

Ian Gartshore, 16 Barloan Place, Dumbarton.

The personal details of 25 million people have been lost in the post, due to the negligence of a government agency. Personal information given to HMRC is supposed to be completely secure. Why on earth should we believe the government when it tells us that personal information provided for identity cards will be perfectly secure in its hands?

Councillor Christopher Mason, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, Glasgow City Council.

I see that the company which has lost the government discs is named TNT, so it seems that this problem has blown up in the government's face.

And if the missing discs held personal information about the 7.2 million families entitled to claim child benefit, will we soon be reading the bank account details of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Tony and Cherie Blair on the web?

Iain A D Mann, 7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.