vnunet.com analysis: World tour of data breaches

HSBC lost data on 370,000 customers when a disc went missing in April

Hardly a day goes by without another security breach putting at risk the personal details of the UK public. In this article, vnunet.com takes you on a world tour of data breaches, using global and local population statistics to put some of the most infamous incidents into perspective.

TK Maxx: 46 million
TJ Maxx, or TK as we know it in the UK, appears to have been leaking customer details for some four years. Over this period it estimates that worldwide it lost, or misplaced, the details of 46 million customers. In order for the firm to get a really good idea of how many people that would have affected, we would like the entire population of Spain to form an orderly queue and say "Hola" to TK Maxx. We said orderly. Oh forget it.

HMRC: 25 million
Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs was really embarrassed when it lost 25 million personal details earlier this year. 25 million people accounts for almost half the UK population after all. If you would like an idea of how many people that affected, go to one of the following countries and shake the hand of everyone you meet. So, pop over and greet the friendly people of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan or North Korea. Well, perhaps friendly is a little optimistic.

Nationwide Building Society: 11 million
The Nationwide Building Society could have faced the wrath of the whole population of Chad, Greece or Belgium - Ooooooh! Scary Belgium! - when a member of its staff was burgled. Because of the loss of a laptop containing personal information, the building society had to contact all of its customers and let them know what was going on. All 11 million of them. That is a lot of stamps to lick.

DVLA: 3 million
The DVLA was embarrassed when computer equipment belonging to a third party went missing along with the personal details of three million British learner drivers. When it comes to good security procedures we are sorry to tell them they have failed. But rather than someone from our office turn up and tell them, we have asked the citizens of Mauritania to turn left at the next junction, perform a three-point turn and then come to an emergency stop in front of the DVLA's Cardiff headquarters.

HSBC: 370,000
HSBC lost the details of 370,000 customers in April this year when someone burned them to disc and idly flipped them into a company out tray. Somewhere along the route from desk, to post boy, to post man, to the door, the discs got lost. In order to provide the lucky bank with an equivalent population, we would have to send them to the Bahamas. We tried this, but somehow the package got lost en route and they ended up in Leicester. Which is a shame for them.

Deloitte: 150,000
People of Swindon, population 150,000, be afraid. All of your personal details might have gone asunder if they had been in the hands of an employee of Deloitte. Until recently the firm was the external auditor for RMPI, the group that administers the railway pension scheme. As with young master Deloitte and his laptop, RMPI and Deloitte have since gone their separate ways.