Lost data disc found in depot (UK)
A missing computer disc holding medical records of 160,000 children has been found – stuck in a conveyor belt at a giant mail depot.
The CD, which had been lost in the post, was spotted by a worker at the TNT parcel office.
It is thought to have become lodged in the workings of a mechanical sorting system at the distribution firm’s main depot in Nine Elms, South West London.
A further EIGHT discs containing patient records are still unaccounted for.
But the find raises hopes that those – plus two others holding personal details of half the population – could be lying unnoticed, rather than in the hands of identity thieves.
TNT alerted police as soon as the disc was discovered on Saturday.
The CD vanished after being posted from City and Hackney Primary Care Trust to St Leonard’s Hospital in East London.
It was one of nine containing information on 168,000 patients which have gone missing from NHS trusts across the country.
The losses were revealed just before Christmas, following a Government-wide data security review.
That was sparked after Chancellor Alistair Darling admitted in the Commons that child benefit records of 25 million Britons had gone missing after being sent on CDs through insecure post by HM Revenue and Customs.
The Metropolitan Police serious and economic crime unit is still searching for them.
Senior officers believe they were probably mistakenly thrown away by a civil servant.
It also emerged that details of three million learner drivers had also been lost after being sent to the US.
There is no evidence any of the missing discs have fallen into the hands of fraudsters or blackmailers.
But their loss has raised concerns about the Government’s new Connecting for Health database.
The system, costing tens of billions of pounds, would hold medical.
