Roll up, roll up. I’m going on a mystery tour and I’m inviting you along. I’m going to get in touch with the financial organisations that are part of my life and I’m going to ask them about what journey my personal details can expect to take once they become test data.

It should prove quite interesting as I’m not convinced that taking a copy of production data and using minimal masking techniques is quite as robust as their millions of customers imagine it to be.

In fact, if the average punter knew that copies of production data are used in development – often offshore – there would be an audible gasp of amazement. What? You have reassured us all with assurances about state-of-the-art security systems for live data only to let copies walk out the back door. And the reason why? Because they are only being used for development?

Well call me pernickety but that the simple issue of using a copy of live data is enough to make me sit up my keyboard and write me a letter. I’ll keep you posted with what I find out.