Breach discovered last week

THE Department of Social and Family Affairs discovered only last week that a laptop stolen 16 months ago contained information of more than 380,000 people entitled to social welfare payments.

It has emerged that the laptop, stolen in April 2007, contained personal information including name, address, phone number, marital status, bank details and PPS numbers of a huge number of people entitled to welfare payments.

The majority — 295,000 — were pensioners. A further 63,000 records were on recipients of single-parent payment, 15,000 on widows’ pensions and 8,000 on orphans’ pensions. There were a small number of files on bereavement grants and carers’ allowances.