The bosses and managers of businesses in the UK need to do more to improve the security of employees' and customers' personal information, a watchdog has said.

Richard Thomas, the UK's information commissioner, said that several high-profile IT security breeches highlighted the issue, and added that a recent report showed how wide-spread the problem was.

He revealed that there were 24,000 enquiries and complaints concerning personal information in the last year and that around 35 per cent of these identified a breech of IT security in a company.

"Over the last year we have seen far too many careless and inexcusable breaches of people's personal information,' Mr Thomas explained.

"The roll call of banks, retailers, government departments, public bodies and other organisations which have admitted serious security lapses is frankly horrifying.

"Business and public sector leaders must take their data protection obligations more seriously. The majority of organisations process personal information appropriately - but privacy must be given more priority in every UK boardroom."

Recently, it was found that many IT security experts thought that the proliferation of portable USB memory devices represented a new security threat for many businesses.

According to recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent)