Caroline Stocks reports:
Thousands of farmers’ bank account details have been lost by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) after the Government body lost two back-up tapes of confidential data belonging to all English farmers.
The RPA, which administers the single payment system of EU subsidy to English farmers, for the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), was heavily criticesed last week by the National Audit Office for its handling of the scheme.
Now Farmers Weekly has learnt that the RPA has lost confidential data belonging to any farmer who has ever claimed a single farm payment. Computer tapes containing the bank details, addresses, passwords and security questions of more than 100,000 farmers were discovered missing in May, at which point DEFRA was alerted.
Read more on Computer Weekly.