United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized today for the “inconvenience and worries” caused by the UK government’s accidental loss of computer discs containing detailed personal information of 25 million citizens.

During a heated question period in the House of Commons, Brown tried to reassure the country that people’s personal details gathered by the UK’s tax and customs service were safe following one of the biggest security breaches in the country’s history.

Two computer disks that went missing while being sent from one government department to another contained names, addresses, birth dates, national insurance numbers and bank account details.

“I profoundly regret and apologize for the inconvenience and worries that have been caused to millions of families that receive child benefits,” Brown said. “We have a duty to do everything that we can to protect the public.”

Treasury chief Alistair Darling said the disks contained details of the 7.25 million families in Britain claiming the child benefit, a tax-free monthly payment available to everyone with children.

He said the delivery was not being tracked and was missing for three weeks before any alarm was raised.

The disks were password protected but the information on them was not encrypted, officials said.

Brown said he had asked security experts to work with government departments to check their procedures. He said the information commissioner also would be given the power to carry out spot checks on government departments.

Darling said there was no evidence the data had fallen into the hand of criminals and said police were involved in a hunt for the missing disks. He said banks had been told to look for signs of suspicious activity.