Payday lender The Money Shop has been fined £180,000 after losing computer servers with thousands of customers’ financial details.
One server was stolen from a branch in Lurgan, County Armagh, in April 2014 and another was lost a month later by a courier firm in Swindon, Wiltshire.
Encryption systems were not good enough to ensure data could not be accessed, the Information Commissioner said.
The company apologised and said it had since reviewed its IT security.
The Information Commissioner’s office said the servers, which are still missing, “held large numbers of local and national customer records and employee details”.
The Money Shop offer quick payday loans of up to £2,000 usually for people who are seeking funds before their next pay date.
‘Potential for fraud’
Under The Money Shop’s own rules, servers should have been stored in a separate locked room, but the Lurgan store – and others – did not have rooms available to store them.
It also had a “widespread practice” of moving unencrypted servers between its head office in Nottingham and its branches, the commissioner said. Old customer records were not deleted.
View full story