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When Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne admitted to the theft of an MoD recruitment laptop computer, containing over 600,000 personal records, he and his briefers, attempted to downplay just how disastrous a security breach this represents, by claiming in his Ministerial Statement on 21st January that

In some cases the record may be no more than a name, but I am advised that for about 153,000 people who progressed as far as submitting an application form to join the forces, more extensive personal data are held, including passport details, national insurance numbers, driver’s licence details, family details, doctors’ addresses and national health service numbers; for about 3,700 people, banking details were also included.

Yesterday's Parliamentary Written Answer admits to 605,757 addresses

28 Jan 2008 : Column 37W

Departmental Personal Records

Angus Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many of those individuals who had their personal details lost as a result of the theft in Edgbaston on 9 January of an MOD computer from the vehicle of a Royal Navy Officer are domiciled in (a) Scotland, (b) Wales, (c) Northern Ireland, (d) England and (e) elsewhere. [182396]

Des Browne: Where a record of domicile is held, the following figures were recorded on the database at the time of the entry of the record.

	Number
Scotland	59,553
Wales	37,546
Northern Ireland	14,223
England	459,778
Elsewhere	34,667

So, in fact, the vast majority of the stolen records consist of at least a name and address, and are not merely "no more than a name"

This unencrypted data security breach could easily pit the lives of serving or former members of the armed forces, and their families, at risk from terrorists and foreign intelligence agencies. Even people who never actually joined the armed services, but just expressed an interest in doing so, could be at risk, especially if they have, say, easily identifiable Muslim names, or an address in an area that is familiar to fanatics.