WHO’S IN CHARGE AT THE HOME OFFICE?
Further revelations have been announced by the Home Office of the loss of personal data, it appears a contractor working in the Department has lost a computer memory stick containing tens of thousands of criminal’s details.
The Home Office was first told by private firm PA Consulting on Monday that the data might be missing. The lost data includes details about 10,000 prolific offenders as well as information on all 84,000 prisoners in
A spokesperson for the Home Office said the police and the Information Commissioner had been informed. The loss is the latest in a string of lost data incidents for the government, including stolen laptops, lost computer discs and memory sticks and files left on trains.
Cases included the loss of the National Insurance numbers of 17,000 people and the theft of a laptop with encrypted details of 17,000 Sats markers. The details of 25 million child benefit claimants vanished last year. The incident led to the recommendation that government departments should give details of personal data losses.
In this latest case, the contractor confirmed to the Home Office on Tuesday it had failed to uncover the memory stick, but it was not clear how it came to be lost.
The data on the stick also includes information from the Police National Computer of some 30,000 people with six or more convictions in the last year. Deputy Commissioner in the Information Commissioner’s Office, said the latest loss showed that personal information could be a “toxic liability” if not handled properly. “It is deeply worrying that after a number of major data losses and the publication of two government reports on high profile breaches of the Data Protection Act, more personal information has been reported lost,” he said.
He added that data protection needed to be taken seriously at all levels and sensitive information, such as prisoner records, held securely at all times.
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