Just to recap

20th Sept - HMRC laptop containing hundreds of people's details stolen.

18th Oct - details of 25,000,000 child benefit claimants and their children lost (and still not accounted for today). Includes bank details etc.

30th Oct - six more data disks missing from HMRC

Approx 3rd Nov - data of around 15,000 Standard Life customers lost by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

5th Nov - details of up to 3,000 NHS patients on a computer stolen from a doctors' surgery.

24th Nov - package containing about 200 pension statements has gone missing after being dispatched by a Scottish Government agency. But they found it again later.

1st Dec - fresh benefit data lapse admitted by Dept of Work and Pensions.

4th Dec - several firms admit disk failings.

7th Dec - DVLA admits sending 1215 questionnaires containing confidential personal information to the wrong people.

Week of 7th Dec - data on 60000 people on stolen CAB computer.

11th Dec - Leeds Building Society says it has mislaid information containing the personal details of its 1,000-strong workforce.

11th Dec - The Driver and Vehicle Agency in Northern Ireland admits it has lost the personal details of 6,000 people.

17th Dec - details of three million candidates for the driving theory test go missing; "hard drive not found where it had been expected to be, in a "secure facility" in Iowa". Iowa????

18th Dec - personal details of 6,500 customers belonging to a pension firm lost at an office of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in Cardiff.

21st Dec - a subsidiary of the Skipton Building Society admits sensitive personal details of 14,000 customers have been lost. Seems to happen to building societies based in Yorkshire....

23rd Dec - nine English NHS trusts admit losing patient records. Tunbridge managed it twice, so that's ten losses.

24th Dec - NHS Grampian has admitted losing the personal data of patients on a number of occasions in recent years - eight times in five years to be precise.

26th Dec - Devonshire Police apologise after confidential details of its staff were found on a dump.

18th Dec - just to remind you that your data aren't safe, even if they're in the right place - a police officer is to face trial on 10 charges of illegally obtaining personal data. The charges date from January 2004 to January 2007 and allege he obtained data "for a purpose that was not the prevention or detection of crime".

And these are only the ones I've found with a quick trawl through the BBC news website.

All of that suggests to me that those who want us to have ID cards and a database state need to work very hard to convince us all that our data will be safe with them.