Medisure and Boots losing personal data

Fil_3

Hi

I have had a letter from both Medisure (with whom I once had a Boots dental plan) and Boots to tell me that a data tape that held my personal details, including bank account details, had been stolen from a vehicle owned by the security company that was obviously moving these data tapes.

I cancelled the plan many years ago. I commend Boots and Medisure for sending out letters to explain the situation, apologise and reassure me that there cannot be any threat to me.

However, I wonder if anyone can shed light on whether such organisations should be keeping personal data such as this, including bank details, if I have cancelled my relationship with them several years ago. Should they not just wipe the data from their records as if I wanted to open a new dental plan I would just start from scratch anyway

Does anyone have any experiece of this or know if they are allowed to keep such information.

Thanks a lot.

LittleVoice

One of the eight principles of Data Protection legislation is that personal data is "Not kept for longer than is necessary".

When was "many years ago"? If it is longer than it could be required to prove that you had made a payment/received a service, then it seems they could well be keeping the information for longer than necessary.