UK loses prisoner data in latest computer stumble

In another embarrassing stumble with computerized data, Britain's government confirmed Thursday that a contractor lost a memory device containing information on every prison inmate in England and Wales.

British officials have been humiliated by a series of such blunders that has raised questions about its ability to safeguard personal information of citizens even as it works on final details for an ambitious national identification program and an expanded DNA data base.

Millions of names and personal details from across the country have been reported lost because computers or memory devices went missing over the past year. The latest comes after the government published a report in June on how it hoped to improve data handling practices.