Stolen Laptop Exposes13,000 Farmers

A laptop containing the personal details of over 13,000 British farmers has been stolen from a parked car. DairyCo - an organisation set up to improve the quality of the UK dairy market - has written to all those affected in apology.

It is thought that the device, owned by an employee of DairyCo, contained details such as name and address, quota information and transaction reference numbers for farmers throughout the UK. The details relate to every farmer who pays a levy to DairyCo although the company stressed that "no financial details" were included and they are confident that no fraud is possible.

A controversial aspect of the incident surrounds the fact it took the company three weeks to inform the affected parties about the loss. The laptop was stolen on the 9th June - but the case did not come to light until the 1st July when DairyCo wrote to the individuals. Many farmers expressed concern over the length of time taken to tell them about it.

Phillippa Stagg, Head of Communications at DairyCo, apologised and said the incident was "embarrassing".

"When data is lost, you have to go through a process".

"We obviously reported it straight away to the police and then we had to look ourselves into what was actually on the computer. It took us 24 hours to ascertain that and what this information could actually mean. Because we took the investigation so seriously it took time.

Martin Burtt, chairman of the National Farmer's Union dairy board in Yorkshire, called the recent incident of data loss "a sign of the times".

DairyCo is said to be now reviewing its data handling processes.