13,000 energy bill details 'lost'

20 Jan 2010

An electricity transmission company has lost a tape containing information from nearly 13,000 energy bills, it has been announced.

NIE Energy said no banking details were included on the tape, but names, addresses and billing data from 12,799 invoices dated August 10, 2010, had disappeared.

The Northern Irish company has written to customers after this latest incident of personal data losses. Previous losses include information on car drivers and child benefit claimants.

Stephen McCully, managing director of NIE Energy, said: "We fully appreciate that our customers will be concerned that any personal information regarding them is missing.

"However, while we have not been able to locate this tape, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that it has fallen into the wrong hands."

Contractors in charge of NIE's bill processing told the information commissioner's office about the missing details, which are not classified as sensitive under the Data Protection Act because the tape had no debit card or banking information.

Instead, data such as account name and address, bill amount, balance, customer number, bill amount and previous payments went missing.