A contractor working for the Home Office has lost an
un-encrypted memory stick containing 130,000 personal records
relating to criminals in England and Wales.
The data included names, addresses and dates of birth for 33,000
individuals with six or more recordable convictions in the past 12
months.
The names and dates of birth of 10,000 prolific and priority
offenders, and the names, dates of birth and in some cases prison
release data for 84,000 prisoners were also on the memory stick
The incident is the latest in a string of data losses by
government departments.
Soctland Yard has been called in to establish how the memory
stick, which contained data from J-Track, a cross-government system
for monitoring offenders (see box), went missing.
PA Consulting, a
contractor working for the
Home Office, informed
the government it had lost the memory stick containing the data
from the
Police National Computer on Monday. A staff member of PA
Consulting has been suspended pending investigation into the
loss.
The Home Office said
it was investigating the contractual obligations of PA
Consulting.
David Smith, deputy commissioner for the Information
Commissioner's Office, said that "searching questions" needed to be
asked over the safeguards surrounding the data.
"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
"The data loss by a Home Office contractor demonstrates that
personal information can be a toxic liability if it is not handled
properly and reinforces the need for data protection to be taken
seriously at all levels. It is vital that sensitive information,
such as prisoner records, is held securely at all times."
Officers from Scotland Yard's Specialist and Economic Crime
Command were in discussions with PA yesterday over the
circumstances surrounding the loss.
"We can confirm that this morning the Met was asked to provide
assistance to PA Consulting to review the circumstances of the loss
of data on a pen drive by a member of their staff, this data being
provided to them by the Home Office as part of contracted work,"
said a Metropolitan police spokesman
Commenting on the data loss, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg
said: "Charlie Chaplin could do a better job running the Home
Office than this Labour government.
"The government will no doubt seek to blame private contractors,
but the rash of data losses over the past two years confirms that
there is something much more worrying at stake: this government
cannot keep any information safe," he said.
Philip Wicks, a security expert at IT services firm
Morse said, "This case
highlights the fact that organisations need to ensure they have
controls in place to protect data on all removable storage
devices."
He said policies and procedures should be put in place, as well
as technology controls that either stop people from being able to
download data on to these devices or to ensure the data is
encrypted.
The data loss is the latest in a string of data losses by
government, which the
BBC
this week reported included the personal details of about four
million citizens so far this year.
"The Home Office has informed us that an internal investigation
is being carried out into the data security arrangements between
the Home Office and its contractor, PA Consulting. We expect the
Home Office to provide us at the Information Commissioner's Office
with a copy of the report and its findings. We will then decide
what further action may be appropriate," said Smith
PA Consulting said it was co-operating with the Home Office
investigation into the matter and had no further comment at this
time.
| J-Track system |
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The prison service's J-Track system is a web application which
helps police officers track and rehabilitate prolific
offenders.
The Home Office has been working closely with PA Consulting, the
company that lost the memory stick, to develop the system. The
company was awarded a three-year contract in June 2007.
The database contains information from the Prison Service and the
Crown Prosecution Service. It is available via the Criminal Justice
Extranet (CJX), a secure network for criminal justice staff, and
work is underway to make it available through the Government Secure
Intranet (GSI).
Prison, probation and court officers will all have access to
J-Track through the GSI, along with the police officers and CPS
staff who currently use it.
The system aims to identify offenders posing the greatest threat to
communities. Police, prison and probation officers use it to track
the movements of prolific offenders, and to help with their
rehabilitation.
The project is used to support the Prolific and Other Priority
Offenders strategy (PPO).
The details of all prolific offenders are entered onto the J-Track
system. It gives officers access to updated information on court
cases, and information on offenders' movements through the prison
system.
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