April 24, 2008

Bank loses customers details

With all of the trouble that has been going on with government databases being sent through the post and being lost, you would have thought everyone would had learnt the lesson, but no! This practice is still going on and this time it is a bank who is involved.

The HSBC is the largest bank in the UK and in a simple transfer of customer’s details; they put a computer disk into an envelope and sent it through the post. The disk had the details of 370,000 HSBC customers on it and was being sent from Southampton to Folkestone.

On the disk was names, dates of birth and insurance details, but the bank says that the disk is password protected, so the data should be reasonably safe even it has been stolen and made its way into the wrong hands.

Potentially the bank could be fined by the financial services regulator, but no level of fine can make up for this type of mishandling of personal data.

Source [FT]