U.K. Admits Data On 3 Million Beginning Drivers Has Gone Missing

London, England (AHN) - The Christmas holidays, it seems are bringing more woes for the U.K.'s Labour Party. Barely recovering from the David Abrahams donation scandal and dragged by an economic slowdown, another major incident of data loss was reported Monday. On Monday, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly told the House of Commons that data on 3 million beginning drivers, stored on a hard disk, is missing from the offices of the Pearson Driving Assessment.

Pearson is an external contractor to the British Driving Standards Agency, based in Iowa in the United States. Pearson has data on all drivers who took an exam between September 2004 to April 2007. Most of the applicants are Britons in their late teens or early 20s.

The data on the missing hard disk includes the names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses for an estimated 3 million people. But Kelly said it had no bank details, license numbers, national insurance numbers, birthdays or signatures.

Unlike the previous incident involving data on young Britons lost in the postal office which could easily be read and used by its founder, Kelly told lawmakers that the missing data on the hard disk can not easily be accessed or read since it was formated according to Pearson's configuration.

The Transport Secretary apologized to people affected by the data loss. "I apologize for any uncertainty or concern that these individuals may experience," Kelly said.

Affected Britons will not be informed individually, however the Transport Office set up a hotline for queries.

Pearsons is part of the Pearson Group that owns the Financial Times and Penguin Books. The company which boasts of running the world's "most advance and reliable electronic assessment system" last week also admitted two discs with details of over 7,000 motorists sent last week via post between the Northern Ireland Driver and Vehicle Agency in Londonderry and the DVLA.

Kelly said the Transport Office is putting in place five new measures to improve the security of information, including having a new electronic link to provide regular information to the police and the merger of separate databases held by the DVLA in Swansea and the DVA in Northern Ireland. There will be a review of arrangements for data storage outside the U.K. and the bulk transfer of data in the future will be done through secure couriers.