The Ministry of Defence has reported 347 losses of supposedly protected information last year.
The ministry recorded 71 incidents of lost confidential data in January and February 2010. According to a parliamentary written answer published on 8 April, the figure for those two months almost equals the total number of losses for 2005.
Defence minister Bill Rammell revealed that the department reported 77 incidents of lost data in 2005; 130 in 2006; 52 in 2007; 1,099 in 2008; and 347 in 2009.
Rammell told Angus Robertson MP, the Scottish National Party's defence spokesperson, the spike in reported incidents in 2008 was "largely attributable" to two factors.
"Firstly, there is an increased awareness of the need to report data loss across the department. Secondly, since the publication of the Data Handling Review and the Burton Report, the MoD is now auditing its holdings of both personal data and removable media," said Rammell.
The minister said a number of the incidents came to light as a consequence of "thorough housekeeping activities".
"It is likely that a large number of instances relate to records of the destruction of documents not being accurately maintained, rather than documents actually having gone missing," Rammell added.
In October 2008, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) lost a portable hard drive containing sensitive information including names, national insurance numbers and bank account details of around 1.7 million people who had enquired about joining the armed forces.
