A burglary at the London offices of the Bar Council, the professional body representing barristers, netted a laptop containing a contact details of all the Council's members, together with bank account details (used for direct debit payments), and a set of complaints records used for testing of a new IT system.
The Council has set up a hot line phone number for people who believe they may be affected by the theft.
A statement from the Bar Council says the stolen data includes:
the contact details and basic factual data records of all practising barristers, and some non-practising barristers. Much of this data is routinely publicised in Bar directories and on Chambers websites.
the protected records (name, bank account number and sort code) of 3,000 Direct Debit payers: the data does not include any passwords, debit or credit card numbers, or pin numbers
the protected contact addresses of lay members of Bar Council and Bar Standards Board committees
approximately 1500 protected original complaints records being used for new IT system testing, which includes names and contact details of the complainants, witnesses, and barristers, and details of the complaints.
The Chief Executive of the Bar Council, David Hobart says that it's believed to be a random robbery, and that the data was protected.
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