Thousands of Vodafone employees are at risk following the theft of a laptop belonging to external auditing company, Deloitte. The laptop was stolen during a recent statutory pension scheme audit and held personal data regarding employees’ pension data.

Along with pension data, the records contained details of employee’s surnames and initials, employee numbers, grades, pensionable salary, earnings and contribution information. Vodafone sent effected employees a letter explaining the situation and gave advice on how to protect against identity fraud.

One unhappy employee said: “I received this letter in the post today and was horrified that my details are now in the hands of criminals. How can Vodafone let this happen? It’s a disgrace.”

“It’s pretty disgusting that that information could be left out for anyone to get their hands on. My personal details could be used to open a bank account or a credit card, that’s my greatest concern.”

The theft of the laptop has not just affected Vodafone employees though. It also contained details of pension scheme holders from BSkyB, Network Rail and Railway Pensions. It is believed that data for approximately 100,000 people are at risk.

Deloitte stressed the data was password protected and encrypted and claimed that the “risk of unauthorised access to the data is remote”.

In a statement a Deloitte spokesperson said: “The data did not include addresses or bank account information. The theft was immediately reported to the police and relevant clients were notified.

“The laptop was protected by a number of security measures, including start up password, operating system user ID / password authentication and encryption.

“Deloitte has information security policies which include guidelines for employees to ensure they pay close attention to their laptops when in public places. Nevertheless, and very unfortunately, this theft still occurred.”

A Vodafone spokesperson said: “Vodafone is extremely concerned about the breach in security of our employees’ personal information and we take the matter very seriously. Deloitte is a highly reputable firm and also sincerely regrets that this opportunistic theft has happened.

“Vodafone will continue to liaise with Deloitte to ensure that their security processes are of the standard that we expect of a company which has access to such information.”