ICO reports more data breaches

It has been revealed that there have been 94 more cases of individual's private data being lost since 25 million records of child benefit recipients were mislaid by HM Revenue and Customs.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) said today that the more recent breaches were "unacceptable", especially in the light of the HMRC scandal.

Of the data losses that were reported by public sector bodies, nearly a third happened in central government and associated agencies and 20 per cent in the NHS.

Fourteen of the losses were reported by financial institutions, such as a recent case involving HSBC, as Web User reported.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said: "It is particularly disappointing that the HMRC breaches have not prevented other unacceptable security breaches from occurring.

"The government, banks and other organisations need to regain the public's trust by being far more careful with people's personal information," he continued.

Last November, HMRC lost two data discs with records of 25 million UK citizens on them. The information on the discs included dates of birth, National Insurance numbers and bank details.

To date, the discs have never been found.

www.ico.gov.uk
www.hmrc.gov.uk