A LAPTOP containing unencrypted details of hundreds of people was stolen from an army careers office in Edinburgh, the Government said today.
Defence Secretary Des Browne revealed the theft today as he announced an inquiry into the theft this month of an MoD laptop.
Mr Browne said that a Royal Navy laptop was stolen from a car in Manchester in October 2006 and an army recruiting laptop
was taken from the careers office in Edinburgh in December 2005. Together they contained details of at least 500 people.
The admission came as Mr Browne faced MPs over the latest security breach.
He said the MoD laptop taken this month, which carried personal data on 600,000 people, was stolen after a Royal Navy recruiting officer failed to follow security procedures in breach of MoD regulations.
Mr Browne said there was no reason to believe the laptop was targeted for the data it held but the MoD "cannot wholly discount this".
The data included passport, National Insurance and driver's licence numbers, family details and NHS numbers for about 153,000 people who applied to join the armed forces and banking details of around 3,700.
"It is not clear to me why recruiting officers routinely carry with them information on such a large number of people or, indeed, why the database retains this information at all," he added.
Mr Browne told MPs the intelligence services have said there is no indication the unencrypted files have fallen into the hands of extremists.
He said a Royal Navy internal investigation had been completed, all similar laptops recalled and "appropriate action" was being considered against the officer responsible.
He also announced an inquiry by Information Advisory Council chairman Sir Edmund Burton into weaknesses in MoD information security procedures.
Shadow defence secretary Dr Liam Fox said the incident showed "incompetence, mismanagement and poor procedures" on the part of the authorities and was potentially more damaging than HM Revenue and Customs' recent loss of 25 million people's child benefit details.
The full article contains 340 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
