A laptop computer with confidential details of more than 1,400 Southend Council staff has been stolen.

Information on its hard drive included bank details, National Insurance numbers, birth dates and payroll numbers.

The laptop was in the car of a contractor employed to upgrade the Civic Centre computer systems. Council management alerted workers to the theft by e-mail yesterday, advising them to warn banks.

An angry employee, who asked not to be named, said he was concerned about how long it took to warn staff that their personal information was in the hands of a thief.

He said: "We have been told by an unofficial source that our details were stolen more than two days ago. If so, anyone who was going to remove money from our accounts would have done it already."

Chief executive and town clerk George Krawiec said all the council's non-school staff were affected. They had been sent an e-mail warning them to alert their banks to look out for bogus withdrawals as a precaution, but he believed the risk was slight.

The laptop was taken from the car of a Northgate Information Solutions worker.

A spokesman for Northgate said they were sorry and had "taken steps to ensure it will not happen again".

Published Friday June 11, 2004

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