Lloyds bank customers were surprised this week, when they learnt that their personal details might have leaked out from a missing storage device of the bank. The storage disappeared from the offices of an insurance firm in July, but customers were only informed last week when the company wrote to them via mail.
The data in the appliance includes information of the Royal Sun Alliance(RSA) customers who paid £25 a month for a premier packaged account which included home insurance with RSA. Thousands of the bank customers fear that their named, addresses, account numbers, and sort codes are now in the hands of criminals after receiving the letters informing the breach.
RSA did not file the police complaint in this regard, as it wanted to sort out this issue in private. It was only after a month long search for the missing data storage appliance, did the authorities inform the police. For doing so, Privacy Watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office, can fine RSA £500,000 for having inadequate data protection.
The London based company has offered affected customers a free identity theft insurance for two years. But initially the customers need to buy the insurance for £20, which will be refunded by RSA after a fortnight.
As per our sources, RSA was the Home Emergency insurance cover provider for a small number of Lloyds Premier Account holders and the data was held as per standard data retention requirements and processes. However, the appliance which was hosting the data was stolen from the company’s data center and the probe for the burglar is still on. As of now, it has been reported that around 6,000 account details of RSA has been breached in this appliance theft and only affects those customers who made a claim on their emergency home cover between 2006 and 2012.
Lloyds bank however denied that the breach could have leaked out customer data to the burglars, as the appliance was secured with high-grade encryption.
More details are awaited!
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