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Tape Loss Stuns UK Retail Giant

Posted by James Rogers on April 25, 2008

Tags: Data Protection,  Other

Channel: Data Protection, Other

Major U.K. chemist (drug store) chain Boots has joined the growing list of organizations suffering an embarrassing storage snafu after tapes containing personal details of thousands of customers and employees were stolen.

The tapes, which were stolen from a security subcontractors car in the city of Bristol, contained the details of some 35,000 people, according to media reports. Boots has 1,500 stores in the U.K. and Ireland.

The records reportedly include the bank details of 27,000 customers of Boots’ dental service, which is operated by Medisure, as well as the personal details of some 8,000 Boots employees.

Neither Boots nor Medisure would respond to Byte and Switch requests for comment on the theft, which follows a string of headline-grabbing data breaches on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.S. the Universities of Miami and Virginia recently suffered tape and laptop thefts, and the the Swedish armed forces were left reeling when a USB drive containing military secrets turned up at a public library earlier this year.