Computer theft - Our trust in banks takes another hit

UNLESS you are very rich you probably rely on the banks to help you through life’s challenges. You depend on them, and pay them very well, for mortgages, business loans, car loans, pensions or whatever other kind of financial package you decide you need.

During that process the banks shine a light into every corner of your business, recording pertinent and some not so pertinent details about how you live your life.

You disclose these details because you trust the bank to respect the private nature of that information.

The theft of four laptop computers from Bank of Ireland staff, each with personal details of thousands of customers, indicates that Bank of Ireland has not honoured that confidentiality. Customers whose details have disappeared into the ether are entitled to feel exposed and betrayed.

Had any individual, customer or employee, disclosed details of the bank’s business in this careless way the consequences would be dire and we wouldn’t have to wait the bones of a year to hear about it either.

The computers were not secure, so a bored and moderately bright 10-year-old could have accessed the details. The lack of security might have been forgivable if just one unencrypted computer had been stolen, but as the bank admits, four were stolen over a period of five months, between June and October last year.

Why, after the first theft, did the alarm bells not ring loudly? Why were all vulnerable computers not modified to protect customers? They should have been and Bank of Ireland knows it.

What is truly amazing is that, as late as yesterday, Bank of Ireland Life managing director Brian Forrester admitted that the bank’s sales people are still driving around the country using unencrypted laptops.

Maybe they think the thieves won’t strike again.

Though the bank says it has been monitoring the exposed accounts and believes that there has not been any untoward activity, it is hard not to be suspicious.

This suspicion is strengthened by the fact that the data protection commissioner Billy Hawkes was only told of the computer theft last Friday. Why the delay?

How banks behave at this one-to-one level is not the only banking procedure under scrutiny at the moment.

The subprime scandal, which has done so much to undermine economic stability, has provoked an unusually strident demand for clarity and unity from European finance ministers. After two days of talks in Slovenia earlier this month finance chiefs and central bankers agreed to tighten oversight of banks and urged them to be more open about subprime losses.

The prime fallout, according to one estimate, has so far caused about €145 billion in losses in America. In Europe losses estimated are in the region of €48bn.

The Bank of Ireland, or at least some of its staff, have not performed as they should have. Each of these affairs undermines our confidence in our banking system.

At both ends of this spectrum — subprime and laptop thefts — they have not.