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Passport office loses applications
ICO not impressed
The Identity and Passport Office (IPS) has been reprimanded by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) for losing 21 passport renewal forms.
The forms were lost in May 2010 and the ICO informed. The lost data included personal information on both the applicants and the counter-signatories.
All affected individuals were informed and the IPS is unaware of any damage caused as a result of the loss.
The IPS has signed an undertaking to improve procedures, including staff training and data storage policies.
It has also agreed to regular audits and inspections of its procedures.
The details of the Passport Office's undertaking is available here, as a download.
A spokesman for the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) sent us the following: "IPS takes the security of its customer data extremely seriously.
"Following the loss of details relating to 21 passport applications in May 2010, IPS took immediate action to cancel the application information. We are confident that customers were not subject to any risk of identity fraud.
"An internal security review has since been carried out and we have already significantly tightened our processes to prevent such an incident happening again.
"During the past five years IPS has safely handled more than 25 million passport applications." ®