In one of the UK’s biggest public-sector data leaks of 2008, the Home Office lost the details of all of the prisoners in UK jails.  The data was on an unsecured USB flash drive that was lost by contractor PA Consulting, as we’ve discussed on this blog earlier this year.

There’s now been a major new development on this data loss.  According to the Government department’s newly released Resource Accounts for 2008-09 (PDF at link), the USB memory stick contained more than just prisoner data.  It also had UK Police National Computer information, making a total of 377,000 records, 250,000 more than originally reported.

As mentioned previously, after the original data breach, the Home Office terminated its contract with PA Consulting, and carried out “a full review of the system and procedures” that led to the breach. 

This example shows just how serious the fall-out can be from a single lost device.  All the more reason to remove the risk of data loss entirely, by using secure USB flash drives.