Police staff disc found at dump

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The personal information included names, addresses, telephone numbers, ranks and qualifications such as firearms or drug-testing skills of Devon and Cornwall Police employees.

It was found by a man at a recycling centre in Exeter who had been looking for spare computer parts.

The disc was in a computer marked Property of Devon and Cornwall Police.

Devon and Cornwall Police said it was investigating the reports and Assistant Chief Constable Bob Pennington apologised to staff.

He said: "We understand the floppy disc containing personal details of members of staff was recovered from a computer which has been used by the force.

"We take our responsibilities for protecting all information seriously and are extremely concerned as to how this single disk was not removed before the machine was taken out of use.

"Recycling old computers was a conscious decision taken by the force as part of an overall cost-cutting exercise and hard drives are always wiped clean, but it appears that on this occasion the floppy disk has been overlooked.

"Naturally we will be investigating how this happened and looking at our procedures to see if they need to be tightened."

He added: "We would like to take this opportunity to apologise for the unnecessary angst this may have caused to our staff."