Security threats Toolkit

Over 11,000 teachers' details lost on CD

Kablenet.com

Published: 29 Sep 2008 08:09 BST

The General Teaching Council for England has lost personal information on 11,423 teachers, after a courier failed to deliver a computer disc to its office.

The disc, which is encrypted, includes the names, addresses and teacher-reference numbers of those who have recently updated their teaching-registration forms, but not financial data or national-insurance numbers.

The council said only those submitting registration update forms in July and August are likely to be affected. The General Teaching Council (GTC) has informed all teachers affected.

"We have taken all possible steps to protect the integrity of the teaching register and are working to ensure that there will be no similar incident in the future," said GTC registrar Alan Meyrick.

"Because we recognise that no encryption system can ever be entirely infallible, we have taken urgent steps to put additional security measures in place for affected records," he added.

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The council is switching from sending discs by courier to electronic data transfer.

Separately, the Whittington Hospital NHS Trust said it has found all the missing discs, holding payroll data on 18,000 staff, that it had reported lost earlier in September.

The trust spent £25,000 on informing those affected of the loss, according to its response to a freedom-of-information request.

"Following the detailed scrutiny of the inquiry panel, we are clear the discs have now been accounted for and that there is no risk to staff," said chief executive David Sloman. "I apologise for the worry caused to both present and ex-staff."