Lost compact disc containing the personal pension details of 15,000 people was not encrypted.
The CD was lost in transit between Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs Service (HMRC) and financial services company Standard Life, and was unencrypted, HMRC revealed on Monday.
"HMRC take the security of customer information very seriously. The data, which contained the records of around 15,000 people, was lost in transit by HMRC's external courier," said an HMRC statement. "Customers have been written to and precautionary measures have been put in place to check customers' records for any fraudulent activity. We have also reviewed our arrangements and introduced safeguards to prevent this happening in future."
One form of pension payment is an Age Related Rebate (ARR). Funds are paid into the accounts of individuals' pension providers by HMRC electronically, depending on the level of the National Insurance contributions people have made. The pension details of the individuals are then sent separately to pension providers, to enable their records to be updated.
