Criminals info lost

Britain’s Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has blamed a private contractor for losing the details of thousands of criminals, held on a computer memory stick.



Ms. Smith says the government had held the data securely but the firm, PA Consulting appeared to have downloaded it, contrary to the rules of its agreement.



She says an inquiry is now underway into the matter.



Ms. Smith says a risk assessment was also being carried out about the data that was missing, alongside the internal inquiry into what had happened.



The memory stick reportedly contained un-encrypted details about 10,000 prolific offenders as well as names, dates of births and some release dates of all 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales.



The details on 33,000 records from the police national computer were also lost.