Barclays to pay out £250 each to 2,000 customers after losing personal data
Bank will fork our half a million pounds in compensation after losing a USB stick with personal data on it
Barclays is to fork out half a million pounds in compensation after losing a USB stick containing personal data of about 2,000 of its customers.
Barclays alerted customers that a copy of "historic information" that they had provided to Barclays Financial Planning had been recovered by the police during a criminal investigation that was unrelated to the bank. The USB stick was found in a flat on the south coast of England.
The letter stated that the data "includes details taken during the [Barclays Financial Planning adviser] meeting... and the subsequent letter Barclays sent you containing our investment recommendations". It was still investigating how the theft happened, and said that this could "take some time".
Those customer who have been affected have been offered the chance to be put on to a credit checking scheme, to check whether their rating has been damaged as a result of criminals using their leaked personal data.
A Barclays spokesperson told the Herald: "This is not a new theft of data from Barclays. Every indication is that the data here was part of the same theft of data that was reported last year, relating to data stolen in 2008.
"The details on the recently discovered USB data stick belong to a group of customers linked to the Barclays Financial Planning business, which ceased operating in 2011. The data concerned was from 2008 or earlier."
Last month, a freedom of information (FOI) request made by encryption software provider Egress found that all of the UK's major banks and lenders - including Barclays - had reported multiple data breach incidents to the ICO in the past two years.
The figures revealed a staggering 585 incidents reported to the ICO during 2014 alone, and 791 since the start of 2013.