Home Office terminates contract of data loss company

by Staff, Brand Republic 11-Sep-08, 14:00

LONDON - The Home Office has terminated the contract of the company that lost a memory stick containing the details of up to 130,000 prisoners.

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, said PA Consulting would lose the £1.5m three-year deal. It is believed to be the first time a private company has lost a contract after losing the public's personal data.

Smith said: "Our contract had stipulated the sort of security provisions that needed to be in place and that had not happened.

"We are cancelling this contract and we are urgently reviewing the way in which PA Consulting are meeting the requirements of other contracts we have with them."

The memory stick was lost two weeks ago and has not been recovered despite the government's investigation into the case.

"Our investigation has demonstrated that while the information was transmitted in an appropriately secure way to PA Consulting and fed to a secure site, it was subsequently downloaded on to an insecure data stick and that data stick was lost."