A council is investigating the theft of four laptops
containing the personal details of more than 14,000 voters.
One of the computers contained names, addresses, dates of birth,
signatures, copies of scanned postal vote application forms and
postal vote statements.
St Albans City and District Council said the information was not
encrypted, but was password protected. The council has written to
voters affected because, it said, "there is a small though unlikely
risk, of the data being accessed and used fraudulently".
The council said there was no evidence of a break-in at the
council offices and that it was likely to have been an
opportunistic theft.
The Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner's
Office have been informed of the theft. An internal investigation
is also been carried out to find out whether there's a need for
further security. The council added: "We are working with the
police and Northgate Information Systems, who manage the council's
information technology services, to find out what happened."
St Albans is not the first council to lose data - a large number
of public sector organisations have
experienced similar problemsover the past couple of
years. The council advised voters to be careful about giving out
further personal information to anyone.