Pensions Trust enlists fraud prevention service after data theft

Finance | Tania Mason | 1 Jul 2009

The Pensions Trust has called in fraud prevention service CIFAS after it was revealed that records of 109,000 charity workers had been stolen from its software providers NorthgateArinso in May.

The data was not encrypted, though the Trust emphasised that it was password-protected and that it believed the theft had been motivated by the laptop rather than the data contained within.

CIFAS has been brought in to protect those members of the Trust whose details were lost by alerting other organisations that the personal data is at risk. The Trust also reported the theft to the Information Commissioner and the Pensions Regulator, wrote to every individual whose details were lost and set up a helpline for those affected.

Lynda Howe, chair of the Trust’s corporate trustee Verity Trustees, said the Pensions Trust has now withdrawn access to personal member data from NorthgateArinso and instructed it to delete any personal member data it holds.

A spokesman for NorthgateArinso said the laptop had been stored in a locked room, and had not been left lying around. "Everything points to this being an opportunistic theft and there is no evidence that any of the data on the laptop has been used or accessed."

Who's Who: Tania Mason

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.