EU enquiry needed into UK breaches of data protection

1.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 21st Jan 2008

London Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford has written to EU justice Commissioner Franco Frattini to demand an urgent inquiry into the UK's respect of EU data protection law, and the implications for EU data-sharing plans, after repeated data losses by government agencies.

Most recently, a Ministry of Defence official had a laptop holding details of 600,000 potential recruits to the armed forces stolen from his car. A reply is still awaited to a letter Sarah Ludford and Portuguese MEP Carlos Coelho wrote to Commissioner Frattini 2 months ago asking for a Commission 'green paper' on data security in EU databases after UK tax authorities lost two CDs containing personal records of 25 million child benefit claimants. There have been numerous other UK breaches.

Sarah Ludford, a leading member of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, said:

"The UK data losses are casting severe doubt on UK government information plans, such as for the ID card register. But they also raise serious doubts about ambitious EU plans to store and exchange masses of personal data between Member States."

"If a major European state is so careless, what might be going on elsewhere? It may be that UK incompetence is unique, but we need to find out through a wholesale review of respect for rules on data protection and data security."

"It is rich of the UK's Labour government to call opposition parties 'soft on terrorism' when they have exposed potential armed forces recruits, including Muslims, to terrorist dangers. Their cavalier attitude to data safety is a massive own goal in what Commissioner Frattini has unfortunately called the 'war on terror'."