Bank of Ireland employee loses USB stick containing customer details

The personal information of almost 900 customers has been lost by an employee of Bank of Ireland.

The details of 894 customer accounts, phone numbers and addresses were copied on to a USB stick which was subsequently lost. Bank of Ireland says it has informed most of the people affected by the data breach, and will monitor their accounts for unusual activity.

It has also been revealed that the information was not encrypted despite this being required by the bank's policies and procedures. In a statement the bank said “no financial information in relation to customers' accounts was on the device” and it had no reason to believe the device had “fallen into the wrong hands.”