MOJ Lose’s Laptop With 45’000 Peoples Data Stored

The Government’s reputation for protecting people’s sensitive electronic data has been dealt yet another blow with the revelation that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) lost the records of 45,000 people.

The information included dates of birth, national insurance numbers, criminal records, and in a single incident, the loss of bank details and other information belonging to 27,000 people working for suppliers to the department.

In another case, officials lost an “inadequately protected” laptop storing the job applications of 13 people who were applying for judicial positions with the service.

The revelations in the department’s annual accounts come after similar blunders saw two CDs with the child benefit records of 25 million families lost in the post and the loss of 658 laptops by the Ministry of Defence.

In 30,000 cases the MoJ did not notify the people affected, judging that it did not need to do so after carrying out a risk assessment.

In January an “inadequately protected” laptop containing records of 14,000 fine defaulters including names, dates of birth, addresses, offences, and – in a fifth of cases – national insurance numbers, went missing from a “secured” government office.

In June 2007 records of 27,000 people working for suppliers to the MoJ, again kept on “inadequately protected” storage devices, were lost.

Two other laptops and several other storage devices were mislaid in 2007, leading to the loss of names, dates of birth and national insurance numbers of 145 court appellants, and the names of 138 criminals and the offences committed by them.

Liberal Democrat Justice spokesman David Howarth MP said: “Yet again the Government has shown that it cannot be trusted with citizens’ personal data.

“How can ministers possibly argue for the introduction of a universal ID Card scheme when they can’t even keep safe the data they already have.”

An MoJ spokesman said: “Risk assessments were carried out to assess who, if anyone, should be notified and to ensure measures were in place to mitigate risk to individuals and to prevent a recurrence of the incident.

“The dsepartment will continue to monitor and assess its information risks in order to identify and address any weaknesses and ensure continuous improvement of its systems.”

He said the ministry is planning to implement a dedicated information assurance programme to oversee and ensure that electronic information and documents are “managed, stored and disposed of in a manner that inspires high levels of parliamentary and public trust and confidence”.

In April the Information Commissioner said he was notified of 94 data breaches since the loss last year of the child benefit database – two thirds were committed by the Government and other public sector bodies.

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