There's an old joke about being cautious when you see a light at the end of the tunnel... it could be an oncoming train. (There's another one which warns that it could be New Jersey, but that's not very charitable). I suppose it depends how optimistic you want to feel...
Apparently up to 1.7m people who have expressed some level of interest in joining the UK armed services have had their personal details go missing on a hard drive which had been on an EDS site, under a contract they have with the Ministry of Defence. According to the Armed Forces Minister, Bob Ainsworth, the data could include include details such as "next of kin details, passport and National Insurance numbers, drivers'
licence and bank details and National Health Service number", for those individuals who got to the stage of completing an application form.(Incidentally, it's not clear at this stage whether these are the same people affected by this January's loss of a Royal Navy laptop containing details of 600,000 applicants to the Navy, Marines or RAF...).
Either way, age demographics being what they are, many of those applicants can probably console themselves with the thought that their details have already been compromised as a result of last year's HMRC data breach. If you recall, that exposed information relating to families drawing Child Benefit - an entitlement which ends when the child turns 16 (or 18 if they are in full-time education). Realistically, then, many young people of an age to be considering a career in the forces will have been in the age-group affected by the HMRC loss. Light, or oncoming train?
If there's any further scrap of consolation to offer this unlucky generation, it is that, although their banking details may have been compromised, those details are probably worth a lot less now than they were a few months ago. Light, or...?
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