Here is another case of portable hard drives or portable discs being stolen that contained personal information. The Telegraph has reported that the Ministry of Defence has recently admitted to a theft of some portable discs that contained the personal information of possibly thousands of personnel who are currently serving and who are now no longer in service.

These devices were being stored in a secure area of the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency’s offices at Innsworth Station in Gloucestershire (UK) prior to the theft being discovered. Information contained on the discs is not definitely confirmed, however, sources have reported that personal data might be contained on the discs. This incident was revealed just two days after the government was given warning to evaluate the way in which it handles the loss of data.

Many different cases have taken place this year involving civil or government authorities missing private data. Back in August, a home office contractor lost a data device containing the personal information of 84,000 prisoners. Another breache involed the data of 25 million and involved bank accounts and insurance numbers. This was also a loss of portable devices that contained sensitive information.

We have seen many of these breaches take place practically every day and there must be better care taken on the part of the agencies or companies that handle this data. In the meantime, it will take individual effort to prevent the misuse of stolen data. Having an identity theft protection service is a start.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 8:46 am and is filed under Data Breach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.