SFO admits loss of data from BAE probe

8th Aug 2013 15:22

The Serious Fraud Office has accidentally lost some of the data it gathered during the course of its closed investigation into defence giant BAE Systems. It said it returns material supplied for investigations once they are closed, if requested. In this instance, it accidentally sent 32,000 pages of documents and 81 audio tapes from 59 different sources back to the wrong person. About 98% of the material has been recovered and the SFO said: "Efforts continue to recover all the remaining material that has not already been destroyed by the recipient."The SFO said the lost data represented 3.0% of all of the information it had gathered for the BAE case but that no material relating to national security was included.An SFO spokesperson said: "Any loss of data is a serious matter and the SFO has taken action to ensure no further material can be wrongly sent out." The SFO discovered the data loss, which took place between May and October 2012, in May this year. TB