Children's contact details are among the files lost by Medway Council over the last three years.

The campaign group Big Brother Watch has published a list of data losses by council employees and contractors.

Medway had five instances of sensitive and personal information being lost or stolen between August 2008 and August 2011.

These included a laptop being stolen from an employee's car and personal employee data accidentally being sent to internal and external sources.

The research also found parents' and children's personal data was sent to the wrong address on one occasion and a youth club membership list containing young people's contact details was lost.

A file containing personal information was also lost at the council's offices at Gun Wharf.

A Medway Council spokesman said: "We take our responsibility to keep personal information secure and confidential incredibly seriously and any cases where data is reported as lost or in some cases stolen, will always be reported, logged and fully investigated.

"We also have a policy where all our laptops and USB drives are encrypted to protect the information on them."

Medway's neighbour Kent County Council has been ranked the second worst authority in the UK for data losses. In the past three years the council has had 72 cases of information going missing.

The details have been revealed following a Freedom of Information request to every local authority in the country.