The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has criticised the way in which new recruits do not take data security seriously enough, it has emerged.

A report by Sir Edmund Burton found that young military personnel were accustomed to "rapid and often uninhibited exchange of information".

Describing new recruits as the "Facebook generation" Sir Edmund stated that this behaviour must be controlled at work by common sense and informed data protection practice.

Sir Edmund, who is the chairman of the Information Advisory Council, was appointed to chair an inquiry following the theft of a laptop with records of 600,000 recruits from a Royal Navy recruiter's car last January.

He stated that security processes formulated during the Cold War had not been passed on effectively into the information age.

"Generally, there is little awareness of the current, real, threat to information, and hence to the department's ability to deliver and support operational capability," commented Sir Edmund.

Other recent high-profile security breaches include the theft of a laptop from the constituency office of cabinet member Hazel Blears leading some to speculate that data security rules may have been broken.

According to a 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) In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'