Skipton freezes accounts after computer theft

by Gill Montia

Story link: Skipton freezes accounts after computer theft

Skipton Building Society is warning members that they could become victims of identity theft, following the loss of personal details of 14,000 customers of its subsidiary, Skipton Financial Services (SFS).

The data was on the hard-drive of a computer that has been stolen from Moore Stephens Consulting, a London-based IT company.

It includes names, addresses, national insurance numbers and fund investment details belonging to customers with funds administered by Fidelity FundsNetwork.

The laptop was apparently stolen from an employee’s locker on the evening of December 11th and Simon Holt, managing director of SFS, has confirmed that the accounts at risk have been frozen and that the company is not aware of any fraudulent activity having occurred.

However, the building society is issuing all customers affected with new account numbers and for the next 12 months they will be able to use Callcredit, the credit reference agency, for credit checks and alert services that will be provided free of charge.

Jamie Cowper of data-protection specialist of PGP Corporation, has pointed out that, as with other recent incidents that involved Government departments, the SFS data was only password protected and not encrypted.

The Skipton Building Society could face sanctions from the Financial Services Authority over the incident.

Earlier this year, Nationwide was fined £980,000 by the regulator after a laptop holding customer data was stolen from an employee’s house.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is currently calling for a review of the UK’s data laws, which could result in careless handling of data becoming a criminal offence.