Millions of L-driver details "gone missing"

The Driving Standards Agency has admitted losing more than three million learner drivers' details.

In a speech to Parliament yesterday, transport minister Ruth Kelly said the details had been lost by a third-party contractor, Pearson Driving Assessments Ltd, in May of this year.

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Kelly said: "Pearson Driving Assessments Ltd, a private contractor to the Driving Standards Agency, informed the agency that a hard disk had gone missing from its secure facility in Iowa City, Iowa. The hard-disk drive contained the records of just over three million candidates for the driving theory test."

The lost details included names, postal addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers of people who participated in the test between September 2004 and April this year.

She said: "The lost hard disk did not contain bank account and credit card details, driving licence or national insurance numbers." Kelly added that the disk had been formatted specifically for Pearson systems "and, as such, is not readily usable or accessible by third parties".

Kelly said the Information Commissioner's Office had been informed of the loss and, while being concerned at the scale of the breach, had deemed it unnecessary to contact individuals involved as there appeared to be "no substantial risk" connected to the loss of their data.

Pearson now uses electronic transfer in place of hard disks, said Kelly.

The speech was made by Kelly in response to the loss of over 7,600 motorists' details by the Northern Ireland Driver and Vehicle Agency earlier this month, and follows the loss by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs of 25 million details of people claiming and receiving child benefit. Kelly divulged the learner-driver data loss during the speech "in the interests of greater transparency".

Tom Espiner writes for ZDNet.co.uk