Ambulance service loses details of nearly million people
A computer disk containing details of nearly a million people who dialled 999 has been lost, an ambulance service has admitted.
The information was supposed to be couriered by TNT from Scotland to Manchester two weeks ago, but never arrived at its destination and a search has failed to find it since.
The disk contained records of 894,629 calls to the Paisley Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre (EMDC), near Glasgow, spanning from February 2006.
It included the names of some patients, addresses of incidents, contact phone numbers and some medical details.
TNT lost the disk on June 9 while it was being transferred to MIS Emergency Services, a Manchester-based company that supplies the IT system used in the service’s three emergency medical dispatch centres.
The information contained on the disk was to be used in the development of the service’s command and control systems.
The loss is the latest in a series of data losses from government or local authorities. Last year, Chancellor Alistair Darling admitted to MPs that disks holding personal information on 25 million people and 7.2 million families had gone missing, included names, addresses, dates of birth, Child Benefit numbers, National Insurance numbers and bank or building society account details.
Miss Sturgeon has been provided with a full report and is being kept appraised of ongoing discussions between the ambulance service and TNT.
