IN the past 12 months there have been numerous examples of thousands of private personal details being "lost" or getting into the public arena.

Government agencies and institutions as well as companies have been the usual culprits because of sloppy security procedures.

The risks of electronic fraud are obvious. Criminals only need a computer and some basic details to almost have a licence to print money.

While large organisations seem to have the worst track record for large scale data foul-ups they are clearly not alone.

It is easy to understand the anger of Anna Preece when she had an argument with Parkwise, the body which books parking offenders across East Lancashire.

When they wrote back to her refusing to cancel a parking ticket they included the name, address and credit card details of another person in the envelope!

Parkwise say they are investigating and "take the Data Protection Act very seriously." Not good enough.

They should be publicly apologising to Ms Preece and the person whose data they have wrongly sent out.

And they should also be able to convincingly reassure the rest of us that any details we give them are not going to go astray.