Data Dumped On Roundabout. Twice!

In a great day for the privacy, hundreds of documents containing highly sensitive personal data have been found dumped on a roundabout in Dawlish, Devon. The Department of Work and Pensions said it was urgently looking into the matter. Still, takes a bit of the heat off your boss, eh?

I shall quote directly from the BBC here because of something they mention, but don't really get too excited about:

"Details of benefit claims, passport photocopies and mortgage payments were included in the confidential data. The documents were found on Thursday at a roundabout near Exeter Airport by Karl-Heinz Korzenietz, from Dawlish."

Leaving the slightly suspicious name of Mr Korzenietz to one side, it is the next paragraph which concerns me the most:

"Mr Korzenietz said two months earlier he found similar documents to those found in Exeter...When Mr Korzenietz found the first documents on 6 November 2007, he took them to the Royal Mail depot in Exeter. He said Royal Mail contacted him two weeks later to say the material had been returned to TNT.

But TNT said it is not aware of any missing data. Spokesman Nick Murray said in a statement: "Investigations are continuing, but at this moment in time we have absolutely no record of any missing or lost data from this location."

So not only has there been data lost there twice in three months, but the first lot has been lost again!

Go team. No really, go.