Significant claims are being made at the moment that this year's census data has been accessed and will be leaked soon online. The claims have not yet been verified, and the UK's Office and National Statistics and Lockheed Martin are urgently checking whether the hacker group LulzSec has indeed got its hands on this year's data.
Not that it would be the first time that Lockheed Martin, lead contractor for the census, has suffered from a security failure.
Update: Metro has its doubts about the authenticity of the claims
Update 2: The hacker in questions appears to have denied the census story and that the 'mastermind' has been arrested. Not that it has stopped the Telegraph nor the Mail leading with both though.
Update 3: The hacking of the census has still yet to be verified - though there's been no official denial yet. But if the claims are not true it does demonstrate a couple of points - the incompetence of Governments regarding data security has led to a situation where such data loss is no longer regarded as an anomaly. For several hours yesterday, the claim was seen as part of a process that was an inevitability.
The second, that information posted anonymously on the internet - which could not be verified - was enough for UK newspapers to report it as headline news.
What sad times we live in.
