BBC confirms loss of children's data

A laptop and several memory sticks containing personal information about children and their families has been stolen from a vehicle involved with the production of a BBC TV programme.

The information included names, addresses and mobile phone numbers of children, and dates when families were planning to go on holiday.

A spokeswoman for the broadcaster said the vehicle was owned by a contracted company making a programme for children's channel CBBC.

"This data was not lost by the BBC itself, but stolen from an independent production company working for CBBC. However, we took the issue very seriously. There is absolutely no evidence this data has been misused and the measures we took were entirely precautionary," said the BBC in a statement.

"In the weeks since this happened, CBBC suspended new commissions and carried out a comprehensive review of practices and we are now satisfied security of data is strong enough for production to resume."

It is another example of inadequate security policies associated with a public body and security policies must be improved if mobile working is to be safe, said a spokesman for security supplier PGP Corporation.

"The BBC has become the latest public body to fall foul of poor data security policies – and again, it is children who are at risk of having their personal information exploited or misused," he said.

"If organisations are to continue to support mobile working without affecting employee freedom or putting data at risk, then security policies must be extended beyond laptops to include removable media."

See also:

HMRC missing disc investigation cost nearly £500,000

Tories critical over government waste  18 Jul 2008

Reports reveal poor security practices behind data losses

Data handling review spells out what the government must do to regain the public’s confidence  02 Jul 2008

IT chiefs caught up in power crunch

Nobody will benefit from ignoring the issue until it is forced on you  03 Jul 2008

When in Rome, consider privacy regulations

BCS view: Amendments to the Rome 1 legislation put data privacy back into the limelight  26 Jun 2008

Cabinet Office publishes data handling review

Data will be encrypted, staff trained and privacy impact assessments carried out on all projects  25 Jun 2008

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