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By Sarah Young
LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Barclays said it hadlaunched an investigation after a newspaper reported that thepersonal details of 27,000 customers had been stolen and sold,raising the prospect of new fines for the bank.
Confidential information on customers' earnings and healthas well as passport details had ended up for sale, The Mail onSunday reported, citing data provided to it by a whistleblower.
Barclays said it had notified regulators and started aninvestigation, the initial findings of which suggested the fileswere linked to the Barclays Financial Planning business whichclosed in 2011.
"This appears to be criminal action and we will co-operatewith the authorities on pursuing the perpetrator," the bank saidin a statement on Sunday.
The data leak is a new blow for the British bank after astring of scandals for mis-selling payment protection insuranceand manipulating benchmark interest rates, which have resultedin billions of pounds in fines and compensation payouts.
The bank could face new fines should it be found at faultover this data leak.
Britain's data privacy watchdog, the InformationCommissioner's Office (ICO), can impose fines of up to 500,000pounds for serious breaches of the country's data protectionrules, while Britain's financial watchdog, The Financial ConductAuthority, has the power to impose unlimited fines.
The ICO said in a statement that it would be working withthe newspaper and police to find out what has happened.
The Mail on Sunday said it had been shown 2,000 files on thebank's customers some of which were 20 pages long and containingsome of the individuals' attitudes to risk. The whistleblowersaid there were 25,000 more files on a database.
According to the newspaper, the stolen data is worthmillions on the black market because it allows rogue brokers totarget people in investment scams.
Barclays thanked the Mail on Sunday for bringing the dataleak to its attention.
"Protecting our customers' data is a top priority and wetake this issue extremely seriously," Barclays said in itsstatement.
"We would like to reassure all of our customers that we havetaken every practical measure to ensure that personal andfinancial details remain as safe and secure as possible."
Barclays has been trying to rebuild its reputation afterbecoming the first bank fined for its part in a global scam tomanipulate Libor benchmark interest rates in 2012. The Liborscandal led to the resignation of chief executive Bob Diamondand chairman Marcus Agius.
