Documents containing about 200 people's financial details were found strewn across a road after they apparently fell off the back of a lorry in Wantage.

Can you imagine the damage that could have been had these details got into the wrong hands?
The story goes on to say.

Thousands of sheets of bank, mortgage and pension details, as well as names, addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth, were found in Mill Street on Monday.
Builder Ryan Tate was shocked when he discovered the information belonged to people from across the country.
The 34-year-old picked up the documents, strewn over 70 yards from four boxes, and handed them in to police.

Police spokesman Toby Shergold said they managed to trace the owners of the information and that it had been on its way to storage via a courier company.

He said the information had been mislaid in transit but refused to name the company. He added: "We would like to thank Mr Tate for his responsible actions."

A spokesman from the Information Commissioner's Office, a Government agency with responsibility for protecting personal information, said it could not comment on the case but said breaches of people's privacy were taken very seriously.

Who are they protecting here? this could have been far worse, they got off lightly!

We're just lucky it was an honest person who found the documents - it could have been a lot worse!

Why weren't they shredded before being transported?

Thank God for a few honest people left in the world today. Normally, people will either steal it or just look the other way. Im suprised someone actually took the time to pick it up and report it. Thank God for them.

what an incident! fortunately there are still some honest people out there in this day and age, it's starting to become rare that someone would actually do all that

Thank goodness it was an honest person that found them. I have to tell you though that about two years ago I worked at two different banks cleaning in the evenings. You would not believe the information that is not shredded. I was absolutely astounded by what I seen.

THis is a pretty awkward situation in these times. I could never remember the last time I hearing about an honest person on the streets.

It is nice though when you do hear of people like this that decide to do the right thing. So many wouldn't and that is sad. So this is nice to hear. I bet those people breathed a sigh of relief.

Wow, this is amazing! I guess this is one of those narrow shaves of life. Just imagine what might have happened if these important papers got into the wrong hands. Just because an honest person found it and nothing serious happened, the courier company got off lightly. But such irresponsibility is really dangerous. Anyway, thank God for the good Samaritan. He sure saved a number of people's important papers.

Cheers!