New bank blunder as customer details go missing
Tuesday November 04 2008
THE PERSONAL details of close to a thousand Bank of Ireland customers have gone missing after an employee wrongfully copied them on to a computer memory device which was subsequently lost, the bank confirmed last night.
Both Bank of Ireland and the Data Protection Commission have launched separate investigations into the matter after the USB memory device was reported lost last Wednesday, bank spokeswoman Anne Mathews told the Irish Independent last night.
Most of the 894 customers affected have already been contacted by the bank, she said.
They are customers from across the country, including commercial, personal, pension, life insurance and mortgage-holders.
She stressed, however, that the material that was copied on to the memory device is not financially sensitive, although the bank will monitor the accounts of affected customers in the event of any unusual or fraudulent activity.
The bulk of the copied material was related to general bank business. However, included in it were the account numbers of both business and personal clients as well as the first lines of their addresses and phone contact details, Ms Mathews said.
While the material could potentially be valuable for identity fraudsters, Ms Mathews said there is nothing to suggest that the material was copied for illegal or fraudulent purposes.
"Of its own, it's of no use and the bank has no reason to believe that it's fallen into the wrong hands," she said, adding that without a PIN number, the bank account details cannot be accessed by anyone but the customer.
Policy
However, she admitted that copying such data onto a memory device is strictly against bank policy, although there doesn't appear to be any sinister motive behind it.
"Someone internal copied customer data onto the device," she said. "The person obviously was using the device purely for storing information. They did need the information but they shouldn't have copied it," she said.
The loss will add further embarrassment to the bank after four laptap computers belonging to the bank were stolen in April containing the details of 31,500 Bank of Ireland life insurance customers.
- Allison Bray
