BOI missing laptops - RTE spice up the story!

Bank of Ireland is suitably embarrassed by the news that 4 BoI Life laptops containing personal details of c. 10k customers have gone missing in the past year.

The bank says that there has been no apparent attempt to use the data for fraudulent purposes in the interim, and the gardai have assessed that the unconnected thefts appear to be opportunistic in nature - someone just taking the opportunity to steal and sell a laptop - rather than any effort to exploit potential data on the laptops.

The media has, not unnaturally, sought to hype this story to maximum effect and RTE has outdone itself in this regard. On last nights 9.00 tv news, RTE revealed that it's not the first time BOI has had problems with computers, recalling that former CEO Mike Soden was forced to resign when he was found looking up a US escort agency website on his office computer, in May 2004.

Where the connection/relevance is between the two stories escapes me for the moment, but it certainly says a lot about RTE going tabloid in its news/business department. Scraping the barrel with your bottom?