HMRC already holds data on landlords who have received tenants' housing benefit payments directly, as well as those registered with schemes for protecting tenants' deposits.
Currently, the scope of the SCR is very limited, as it only holds data about allergies, current medication and adverse reactions to medicine.
In terms of self-defense, it must secure the nation's elections system, especially the software that holds data on registered voters.
Main memory holds instructions and data when a program is executing, while auxiliary memory holds data and programs not currently in use and provides long-term storage.
The Department of Work and Pensions holds information about people's benefit entitlements while HM Revenue and Customs holds data on tax returns.
The 90-day limit that it is adopting is considerably better than Google's, which holds onto personally identifiable search data for nine months, or Microsoft's, which holds data for even longer.
But Hypponen thinks Internet of things gadgets such as TVs, thermostats, and cars could become a target of ransomware, which holds data hostage using encryption and is a huge problem on PCs (see "Holding Data Hostage: The Perfect Internet Crime").
Devices have two types of memory–random-access memory (RAM), used by active programs, and secondary storage, which takes longer to access and generally holds data not currently in use.
This kind of analysis is possible thanks to global data-gathering program known as the Mathematical Genealogy Project, which holds data on some 200,000 scientists dating back to the 14th century.
But for a typical disk or tape, short of running it in the proper computer, there is no easy way to determine whether it holds data or whether the information is deteriorating.
Previous printed memory has been nonvolatile, meaning it holds data even when the power is off and isn't suitable for short-term storage involving frequent writing, reading, and rewriting, says Zhang.
