Nearly 280 serious data breaches have been recorded by the authority in charge of making sure individuals' data is protected and to make it worse, less than a quarter of that number were down to stolen devices.
Most of the data losses reported came from the public sector with the NHS accounting for more than a quarter of the sum and could possibly become worse with the setting up of giant centralised databases.
Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, said that the more databases are setup and information transiting from one to another, the more likely that something will ultimately go wrong.
He also remarked that the number of data breaches has not diminished since last years data bungle which saw 25 million child benefit records lost and despite the government's commitment to solve what many have considered as a systemic failing.
Speaking about the risks associated with data breaches, Mr Thomas said that this could cost human lives or wreck people's livelihoods.
His comments come hours after the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, adamantly said that the plans to implement the mother of all databases - a gigantic database that will log phone calls, texts and internet sessions in a bid to fight crime and terrorism - has been given the go-ahead.
In hindsight, the bulk of data breaches were caused more by carelessness within the organisation and not by a targeted criminal attacks - which would effectively make matters much, much worse.
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