A computer hard drive containing private details of up to half of Britain's armed forces personnel has disappeared in the latest of a series of "lost data" scandals, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed Friday.
The ministry said its police were searching for the portable drive containing the names, addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth and driving licence details of around 100,000 serving personnel and their families.
It also holds data on 600,000 potential services applicants and the names of those who referred them to the service. The drive also contains some banking data.
The MoD said the disappearance of the computer drive, which belonged to the ministry's IT contractor EDS, was discovered Wednesday.
The missing drive is the latest information security breach to hit the ministry. In July it admitted 658 of its laptops had been stolen over the past four years and that 26 portable memory sticks containing classified information had been either stolen or misplaced since January.
The German car market is facing its worse downturn, the nation's auto industry association warned Wednesday as the deepening sense of economic gloom in the country leads to a shakeout in the industry and the prospects of big job cuts.
A comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as a couple trying to avoid their families at Christmas debuted in first place over the weekend at North American box offices, according to preliminary studio estimates issued Sunday.