An independent research company has recommended that IT support chiefs ensure the protection of customer information as its loss may create huge problems for a company.

It was stated that a large number of factors have to be taken into account by IT support workers when protecting data, with theft and the negligence of workers being two major contributing issues to the disappearance of important information.

Speaking on behalf of the Ponemon Institute as its communications director, Mike Spinney said that the threat may be low to many businesses but that it was too important a problem to overlook.

He said: "When personally identifiable information is compromised as a result of a breach, the risk to individuals is found in exposing data that can be used to commit identity theft and credit fraud."

One of the most recent instances of data loss was that made by PA Consulting, which lost the information of all prisoners currently detained across the country - a case which led the contractor to admit that it had not recovered the memory stick nor understood how it had come to be lost.

More than half of small businesses (53%) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support, London based Connect conducted the research in 2007.