Big Brother Watch, the campaign group that carried out the research, said 132 local authorities admitted to a total of 1,035 data losses and thefts between 2008 and 2011. Only nine incidents resulted in staff being fired, however.
“This research highlights a shockingly lax attitude to protecting confidential information across nearly a third of councils,” said Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch.
“The fact that only a tiny fraction of staff have been dismissed brings into question how seriously managers take protecting the privacy of their service users and local residents,”
At least 244 laptops, 98 memory sticks and 93 mobile devices went missing.
The worst performing councils were Buckinghamshire and Kent, which both admitted they had lost sensitive data 72 times in the last three years. Some 263 local authorities said they had not lost any information.
In one incident in Kent, scanned case notes relating to children were found on Facebook.
Only 55 of the 1,035 incidents were reported to the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, who has called the power to inspect councils’ data protection processes.
A spokesman for the Information Commissioner’s Office said: “It's vital that local authorities properly live up to their legal responsibility to keep personal data secure, particularly where it is sensitive information about children and young people.
“We're calling for powers to conduct compulsory audits in the local government sector and will this week submit a formal business case to the Ministry of Justice asking the government to give us such powers.”
The local government minister Grant Shapps welcomed the new figures.
“This reinforces the need for steps to protect the privacy of law-abiding local residents,” he said.
“Civil liberties are under threat from the abuse of town hall surveillance powers, municipal nosy parkers rummaging through household bins and town hall officials losing sensitive personal data on children in care.”
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