British Council statement on missing payroll data disc

The disk contained some information that appears on staff payslips and was a routine monthly report that the British Council receives from our payroll data supplier. It was sent according to our agreed process with the usual secure TNT courier service but was not received by our Human Resources team. TNT has informed us that they are still taking steps to find the disk.

The data only included staff records and no information about external British Council contacts is involved. The data on the disk was compressed using a proprietary algorithm; furthermore it is not an ordinary CD-ROM or DVD, but an optical disk that can only be read by a particular type of reader with a specific version of specialist software. This software is no longer manufactured and cannot be purchased.  These precautions ensure that the data is extremely secure in the unlikely event that the disk should fall into the wrong hands.  The system for transferring data is being reviewed and in the meantime the data is not being sent.'

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Notes to Editors:

The British Council works in 110 countries worldwide to build intercultural understanding between the UK and other countries through the arts, education and training, science and technology, sport, good governance and human rights. Our income in 2006/07 was £551m, of which grant-in-aid from the British government was £195m. For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org