Contractor loses details on tens of thousands of criminals

In yet another major data-loss fiasco, details of all prisoners in England and Wales, including tens of thousands of offenders, were lost in a memory stick that held the data in an unencrypted format. A staff member for the contractor PA Consulting who is thought to be responsible has been suspended. PA Consulting has been appointed by the Home Office to "provide application support for tracking prolific and other priority offenders through the criminal justice system." The UK public sector has had a number of data breaches over the course of the last year. In the meantime, further data transfers to PA Consulting have been suspending pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

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