A computer hard drive containing the details of about 5000 employees of the justice system was reported missing on 7 September 2008. The justice secretary was not informed about this lost, which happened in July 2007. It was reported that the details of employees of the National Offender Management Service in England and Wales, including prison staff, were lost by private computing firm EDS. The Justice Minister was very angry at the loss and various enquiries are conducted to establish the cause of this loss.

There are various recent losses of government data in the last two years, including (1) Nov 2007: 25m people's child benefit details, held o n two discs; (2)Dec 2007: 7,685 Northern Ireland drivers' details; (3) Dec 2007: 3m learner drivers' details lost in US; (4) Jan 2008: 600,000 people's details lost on Navy officer's stolen laptop: ( 5) June 2008: Six laptops holding 20,000 patients' details stolen from hospital; (6) July 2008: Ministry of Defence (MoD) reveals 658 laptops stolen in four years.

It is clear that the impact of the loss of government data will impose major risks to t he society at all levels, raising concern on data, personal and business securities. For example, for the case on 7 September 2008, the use of a private firm in handling the data has certainly resulted in unwanted exposure. A review of the existing policy and data security procedure in handling government and sensitive data must be carried out and new, more restricted and enforced procedure must be in place in order to minimise future major risks.

Source: BBC News, Data on 5,000 justice staff lost, 7 September 2008, UK.