In a recent turn of events, the British government managed to lose the personal data of thousands of criminals. The information, containing names, addresses and many other details for more than 80,000 prisoners from England and Wales, was transferred to a memory stick, later lost by Home Office contractor, PA Consulting.

"We have been made aware of a security breach at the offices of an external contractor involving the loss of personal information about offenders in England and Wales," says a Home Office spokeswoman. "A full investigation is being conducted. Police and the Information Commissioner have been informed."

Besides the information mentioned above, the data on the stick comprised more than 30,000 records on offenders convicted for six or more crimes in the last year and also the records of more than 10,000 "prolific and priority offenders," details received from the national police computer.

The incident proves once again that the security procedures must be significantly tightened in order to ensure that these types of troubles will be avoided in the future. The memory stick loss comes less than a year after two discs with personal details of child benefit claimants were also reported missing, along with several other problems concerning lost confidential documents on military recruits, driving-test candidates and hospital patients.

Scotland Yard is currently looking into the situation but so far there are no leads to follow. According to the authorities, the stick was misplaced by one of the staff members and at this point there is no clear path to follow.