11 September 2008
Loss of sensitive data leads the Home Secretary to terminate PA Consulting's contract.
A Home Office contract with PA Consulting has been terminated, following a data-handling breach.
In a written ministerial statement, Jacqui Smith informed the House of Commons that the data relating to prisoners and other offenders had been securely transferred to PA Consulting by the Home Office.
Once within PA Consulting's offices, the data was not properly handled - it was placed on a removable USB memory stick in order to transfer information from one computer to another, and then the memory stick was misplaced.
The lost data included sensitive information relating to the JTrack system. JTrack is the system used by police and the Crown Prosecution Service to deal with repeat offenders.
PA Consulting managed that system under contract to the Home Office.
The Home Office was notified about the data loss on 19 August, and on that same day the Home Secretary opened an inquiry into the incident. That inquiry - which has now finished - was conducted by the Home Office Security Unit with advice and support from the Metropolitan Police.
The missing data has not been recovered. However, the Home Office, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Ministry of Justice have assessed the damage done by the data loss and found that the potential risk to those whose data was misplaced, and to the wider public, is low.
'Based on the findings of the inquiry, the Home Office have decided to terminate this contract,' the Home Secretary said. 'My officials are currently working with PA to take this work back in house without affecting the operation of JTrack.'
Based on this incident, the Home Office is now reviewing all of its contracts with PA Consulting.
An external assessment of the department's response to the data loss is now underway.
The lessons learned from what happened in this case will be applied to the Home Office's future contracts involving sensitive data and outside consultants.
The Home Office has also released a detailed notification of a security breach (new window), detailing how the information was handled, and how the data was lost.
Read the Home Office information charter, which details how we work to protect personal information.
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