LONDON: A laptop computer containing personal records of 600,000 people tied to the British navy has been stolen.
The computer was taken from the car of an officer of the Royal Navy in a parking lot in Birmingham last week, Britain's ministry of defence revealed on Friday.
It contained records of people that had applied to or joined the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force, including passport and national insurance numbers, medical records, and in some cases bank details.
The lapse comes after health records of some 25 million parents and children were lost when two disks sent via internal post between two government agency never arrived at their destination, it was revealed in November.
The ministry said it was treating the most recent theft with the 'utmost seriousness'. Those affected had already been contacted and, for those 3,500 cases where bank details were among the records, banks have been notified.
