Farmers' personal details missing

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Farmers' personal details are missing, after three Rural Payments Agency tapes were found to be "unaccounted for".

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told MPs that 38 of the tapes had originally been missing following checks.

One of the tapes and a CD did not contain "personal protected data", but two of the remaining tapes "potentially contained partial data in code".

The Shadow Environment Minister, Nick Herbert, described the loss as another "foul up" by the payments agency (RPA).

The RPA is responsible for subsidies to farmers and the tapes could contain their names, addresses and bank details.

Mr Benn said: "Tapes of this sort can only be read with specialist equipment and detailed technical knowledge.

"Furthermore, one of the two tapes was known to be faulty and had been reported as such since it could not be read."

He said he wanted to reassure farmers "that there is no evidence that tapes are in the public domain".

Officials concluded there was "only a low risk of any usable personal data having been lost" following a "forensic investigation", carried out in accordance with Cabinet Office guidelines.

Mr Herbert said Mr Benn had been forced to make the announcement as Farmers Weekly was planning to report the loss on Friday.

He said: "If the loss was discovered earlier this year and an investigation has been done ... why has the public not been told about this until now? This looks like a cover-up."

Mr Benn said he had only been told of the loss on Wednesday.