I do not have any family at home so my data is OK, I hope. I was going to say 'trust' but that went out of the window many months ago. It's hardly a case of the sublime to the ridiculous, especially if you are one of over 7 million British families that now have your personal and financial data including bank account details, languishing somewhere in the postal system or worse in criminal hands. I suspect more and more the latter.

Let me tell you why.

About 20 months ago I was working for a 'sensitive' organization ( I will not name them) on some historic research. That research involved providing them with regular amounts of data after processing, usually on a monthly basis. I lived in central London at the time and always used the Royal Mail to send in this data in electronic form. I.e. data on CD ( the data was too large to send on email as I only possessed a dial-up internet connection). You may already know where I am going on this one!

Anyway, I put the single CD in an A4 envelope between two pieces of cardboard to disguise it as a CD. Incidentally, although the organization was a sensitive one but my data was not considered sensitive. I do not want to give the false impression I was a spy or something!

This method of sending the data worked for several batches during the summer of 2005. When I ran out of CDs I of course renewed them, but this time I bought a batch that were in thin plastic cases so I thought that would be OK.

I continued to send the data in the usual manner except the first time I used the new batch, I left the CD in the thin plastic case and without the cardboard surrounds. Thinking no more of it I posted the envelope in the usual way in my local post box on the edge of the city of London.

When I went in to see them the next week to collect some more work, my research project leader showed me an envelope. 'Do you recognize this?' she said after the usual formalities. 'Why yes I do,' I replied, 'it's my handwriting.

My colleague was showing me an empty envelope stamped, addressed and franked by the Royal Mail. It looked intact so I thought that they had opened it but could not work out where it had come from. I never needed to put a cover note inside since it was obvious what the data was and it was always expected on a regular basis.

My colleague turned the empty envelope over and it was still completely sealed. At the bottom edge, a slit about the length of a CD was visible. It then became clear that the CD had 'fallen' out of the envelope in transit. Or so I thought. A closer inspection revealed this opening had been achieved by cutting exactly along the edge of the paper with something like a Stanley knife, etc.

My colleague had showed it to me without warning, since the sensitivity of the organisation's business always meant they took care over post received in case items were malicious or even dangerous. I understood that and the reasons for it, but I had no idea that my simple data would be a target for such an inspection or even theft.

We were not particularly concerned at the loss of the data to the public domain, since it was innocuous stuff and we came to the conclusion that the thief or thieves would learn some valuable European history and benefit from reading the data in some leisurely hour between bouts of stealing other people's items from the Royal Mail! We did no more about it and put it down to experience. Data from then on was taken in by hand.

Now how does that concern the government and the British people?

After this disclosure I looked into the postal service. After all I was a researcher and if I could not find things out then nobody could. It turned out that there was and I believe now still is, an extremely bad situation with the infiltration of the postal services with criminal elements. Do not take my word for that. Just Google 'theft from the royal mail'.

This is one result:

'In 2004, 202 postal staff were convicted of theft, and one man sentenced a few weeks ago was the mastermind behind a £20m scam, involving credit cards and check books stolen from a north London sorting office.'

My premise is that the data sent from the Customs & Excise Office in Washington, Northumberland was sent via the 'normal post'. Many have concentrated on TNT's involvement in all this, but I believe it was TNT's postal contract and not their courier service. TNT's postal service competes with Royal Mail to collect from large businesses and other organizations.

TNT collect the mail from Washington and after sorting on post codes, have eventually to hand over the mail they collect to the final Royal Mail sorting office for the last leg of the postal process. Now maybe 'not a lot of people know that', but that is how mail is delivered via mail contractors such as TNT under Labour Government legislation opening up the postal service to competition .

If I am right, then the lost data would eventually end up in a London sorting office for the final leg of its journey to the National Audit Office as an ordinary non-registered postal item. Criminal elements have access to it, and its 'sensitive' address 'National Audit Office' and the fact it contained CDs. maybe packed the same way mine was, became an easy target for the thief with a quick hand at opening mail in transit.

It could be that the envelope or whatever the packing was, ended up at the desired destination but the contents were extracted in a similar manner to the CD I sent in 2005.

The HMRC manager and the lowly operator that sent this mail out in the first place are rightly getting sleepless nights I trust and some heads must roll and quickly, over this affair.

Knowing the endemic problems of criminal elements involved in the British postal service, it was almost a criminal offence to send the data by that means, even though the data was apparently 'protected' by password.

If as I fear, the criminal elements now have this in their grasp, the consequences are going to be immense. At least in the case of my data, the worst (or best!) one could imagine, was a criminal mind with a better understanding of mid-20th century genocide, but in the case of the Child Benefit data, time spent between thefts may result in a lot of fraudulent claims for loans and all manner of serious criminal offences taking place.

It may be time to reassess this notion of postal competition as well as the shutting down of post offices across the UK. There is still something to be said for having your Child Benefit paid in cash across a friendly postal office counter.