The Department of Health (DoH) has been heavily criticised by the Information Commissioner's Office for its role in a failed online enrolment scheme this summer.

An attempt to streamline the training placement application process for junior doctors was meant to move the whole process to the web.

But the scheme was abandoned following a serious data breach which allowed all visitors to the site to look through doctors' personal information on their CVs.

"This is an unacceptable breach of security. Organisations must ensure that the personal information they hold on us is secure – this is an important principle of the Data Protection Act," said ICO assistant commissioner Mick Gorrill.

"It is essential that the Department of Health takes the appropriate measures that we have outlined to protect individuals' personal information."

Data security has become a major issue for IT support departments to deal with due to the increased scrutiny of processes following a series of breaches ini the past months.

The most serious was perpetrated by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs which lost an unencrypted data disc containing the personal information of all 25 million people claiming child benefit after sending it through the post.