Of these, 59 incidents were so severe they were reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Analysis by data protection and cybercrime law firm Griffin Law found that these incidents potentially affected up to 1,346 people.
In total, 1,463 of the breaches were due to unauthorised disclosure of information, while 143 were due to loss of electronic media and paper―the data was never recovered in 22 of these instances―and the final 21 were due to loss of devices, including laptops, tablets and mobile phones.
Donal Blaney, Principal at Griffin Law, said: ‘The government’s nonchalance over these persistent threats to the UK's national cyber security is troubling.’