Deloitte loses pension details of Vodafone, rail, police
Published: 14 Oct 2008 15:06 BST
Accountancy giant Deloitte has lost a laptop containing pension details of clients including Vodafone, Network Rail and the British Transport Police. BSkyB employees are also believed to have been affected.
The laptop was stolen from a Deloitte employee's handbag, which was in a public place, in September. A Deloitte spokesperson declined to specify the number of clients who had been affected, saying the organisations affected would contact their employees regarding the matter. Deloitte also declined to say how many pension details had been lost.
Vodafone said the pension details of past and present Vodafone employees had been on the laptop, which had been stolen in the middle of a Deloitte audit.
"Vodafone is extremely concerned about the breach in security of our employees' personal information," read a Vodafone statement. "Deloitte is a highly reputable firm and also sincerely regrets that this opportunistic theft has happened. We have written to our employees assuring them that we are thoroughly investigating the matter."
Network Rail said that it and many other organisations had been affected by the theft, and that Deloitte had assured Network Rail that the pension details had been protected by security features.
"Deloitte and our pension-scheme administrator, Rpmi, have made us aware of the security breach caused by the theft of a Deloitte laptop and we have advised our workforce of this news," said Network Rail in a statement. "We have been given assurances that security measures were in place to protect the data, but are investigating this incident as a matter of course."
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Deloitte said the laptop was encrypted, and had not contained bank details or addresses of individuals.
"The laptop was protected by a number of security measures, including startup password, operating system user ID/password authentication and encryption," said the statement. "We believe that the likelihood of unauthorised access to the data held on this laptop is remote due to the opportunistic nature of the theft and the security controls."
A Deloitte spokesperson told ZDNet.co.uk that the company is not disclosing details of the exact date or location of the theft, claiming this reduces the likelihood of the thieves being aware of the information on the laptop.
The spokesperson added that the Information Commissioner had been informed of the theft, as had the police.
British Transport Police said that its employees had been affected, but declined to comment further. BSkyB at the time of writing was unable to confirm press reports that its employees had been affected.
The report of the Deloitte data loss comes after EDS admitted on Friday to losing unencrypted Ministry of Defence personnel details.
Meanwhile, Deloitte warned in September that people are the weakest security link in an organisation.
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