AIB HAS WRITTEN to 550 of its Galway customers to inform them that their confidential information was “mislaid” at the end of last month.

RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, who broke the story this morning, reports that branches in Salthill and An Spidéal have sent letters to their customers to inform them that details such as their full names, account balances, loan information and bank fees were lost on Thursday 31 August.

In the letter, AIB explains that the information was lost when “a staff member was travelling between two branches for a scheduled internal meeting that was being held to carry out a general review of branch portfolios”.

We have taken and continue to take every possible action to locate the mislaid data but to date it has not been retrieved.

AIB has assured its customers that their addresses and PINs were not lost as a result of the data breach, and that their accounts are still secure. The company also stressed that it is taking the situation seriously.

The letter said:

“We would like to apologise that this incident occurred and what to assure you that we take our Data Protection obligations very seriously and in that regard, we have reported this incident to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (where applicable).”

In a statement to TheJournal.ie, AIB said:

Some confidential information relating to the banking facilities of a number of customers was mislaid on Thursday 31st August in Galway.

“AIB has contacted all impacted customers to explain the matter and to apologise unreservedly. AIB takes its Data Protection obligations very seriously and has reported this incident to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.”

This article was updated at 11.50am to include a statement from AIB.

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