Stolen MoD laptop with details of 600,000 recruits was taken from car of Navy jobs adviser

The Petty Officer, based at an Armed Forces Careers Office in Birmingham, had left the laptop – containing the personal details of 600,000 military recruits – in the boot while he visited the Birmingham University Royal Navy Unit, which trains undergraduates in naval and leadership skills.

The black and silver Compaq Evo N600c was stolen along with the petty officer's silver Nokia 6030 mobile phone.

His car is believed to have been parked overnight at the university.

MoD officials were unable to explain why such a junior Area Career Liaison Officer was in possession of highly sensitive information, or even whether he was entitled to hold it.

The computer contained unencrypted lists of names, addresses, bank and driving licence details, National Insurance and National Health numbers, doctors' addresses and passport numbers for current and potential recruits for the Navy, Royal Marines and the RAF.

The computer, which was stored in a black fabric case, was stolen on the night of January 9/10.

The theft is a huge embarrassment to the MoD. A year ago it ordered a tightening of security after an alleged plot in Birmingham to kidnap a Muslim British soldier and behead him unless Britain pulled troops out of Iraq.

Nine men, seven of them British-born Muslims, were arrested. Six were charged with terror offences and are on trial. Three were released without charge.

The laptop theft is the latest in a string of data blunders. Two CDs containing the records of 25million Child Benefit recipients are still missing after being posted by a Revenue and Customs official last October.

Last month it emerged that a disk drive containing the details of three million British learner drivers had vanished from a data processing centre in the US, and the Department of Health was forced to admit that 168,000 medical records had gone missing.

Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox said of the laptop theft: "This is potentially a very serious situation. We will want to know what security implications there may be.

"We will also want to know in the light of other serious breaches of data protection exactly what measures the Government is taking to protect the personal information of individuals."

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said: "This latest incident is a stark illustration of the potency of personal information in a database world.

"The volume of information in this case is significant and I am concerned about the sensitivity of some of the information contained on the laptop and the fact it pertains to military personnel.

"But this is not just about security. We will need to know why so much information on so many people was held on a laptop and whether any of it had been retained for too long."

The MoD said Defence Secretary Des Browne would make a formal statement to the Commons tomorrow.