The Data Protection Commissioner's office is investigating the nature of the information that was taken when a laptop containing Irish blood donors' data was stolen in New York.
The laptop contained the personal details of 171,324 blood donors, as well as the personal details of 3,294 patients whose blood tests would have been sent by hospitals to the Irish Blood Trans-fusion Service (IBTS) for deter-mination of their blood group.
The IBTS said the data was securely encrypted and believed the possibility of any third party accessing the personal details of anyone on the laptop was "remote".
Diarmuid Hallinan, spokesman for the Data Protection Commissioner, said yesterday: "We are investigating at the moment the nature of the information that was taken, but so far we are reassured by the level of encryption used on the laptop. Hopefully that will mean this information will never make it into the public arena."
The personal details of donors and patients on the laptop included their names, addresses, gender, dates of birth and contact phone numbers. The IBTS said details of people's viral status was also included but was coded.
Asked if the people whose personal records were on the laptop should be concerned, Mr Hallinan said it was too early to say. "We are still in the early stages of our investigation. We have sent queries to the IBTS and they are co-operating with us."
An inspector from the Data Protection Commissioner's Office will visit the IBTS today.
The laptop went missing when a New York Blood Centre (NYBC) staff member, who was working on a software system for the IBTS and therefore had the data on his computer, was mugged on February 7th outside his home in New York. The IBTS said it was informed the next day and told the Data Protection Commissioner on February 11th.
It plans to post letters to all donors whose details were on the laptop informing them of what happened this Friday.
"We are writing to each donor affected by this incident to reassure them and to advise them of the possibility, however remote, that their personal data might be accessed," it said.
It is leaving it to hospitals to contact the 3,294 patients whose details were on the laptop.
The CD holding the Irish data was handed over to personnel from the NYBC in Ireland in December. Its contents had been downloaded in the US on to the laptop that was stolen.
IBTS chief executive Andrew Kelly said stressed that the data was encrypted to a far higher level than was required for top security documents in the US after 9/11. "To our knowledge there is no record of a successful attack against this level of encryption," he said. Minister for Health Mary Harney said she was satisfied there were no breaches of security on the part of the IBTS.