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Prisoner data loss firm loses govt contract

10/09/2008

The Home Office has ended its contract with the firm responsible for losing the details of thousands of criminals.

Home secretary Jacqui Smith said PA Consulting's loss of the computer memory stick represented a "clear breach" of its contract.

"This was a clear breach of the robust terms of the contract covering security and data handling," Ms Smith told MPs.

"Based on the findings of the inquiry, the Home Office has decided to terminate this contract."

The firm had informed the government on August 19th that it had lost the memory after it was transferred securely, prompting the Home Office to handle the JTrack prisoner system in-house.

Ms Smith added that the government's other contracts with PA Consulting were now under review and pledged that lessons learned from the incident would be applied to working with other suppliers.