Now, British Council disc containing data on 2000 members is lost

London, Jan.26 (ANI): A computer data disk containing personal details of around 2,000 members of British Council staff has been lost.

According to a report in The Mirror, the lost disc contains names, national insurance numbers, salary and bank account details of the Council's UK staff, and is the latest in a string of cases of official information going astray in recent months.

The British Council says that the missing disk was securely encrypted to keep its contents safe if it falls into the wrong hands.

A British Council spokesman said that the disk, containing some details which appear on staff payslips, was lost while being transported from the organisation's payroll data supplier to its human resources department by courier firm TNT on a routine monthly delivery in December.

"It was sent according to our agreed process with the usual secure TNT courier service but was not received by our human resources team. TNT has informed us that they are still taking steps to find the disk," said the spokesman.

He added: "The data only included staff records and no information about external British Council contacts is involved.

The system for transferring data is being reviewed and in the meantime the data is not being sent," he said. (ANI)