The government office responsible for providing insolvency services has issued an apology after magnetic tapes containing information of about 76,000 people went missing.

However, it stressed chances of a data leak is "extremely low".

The Official Receiver's Office revealed on Monday that seven magnetic backup tapes were lost while being delivered from Immigration Tower to Queensway Government Offices on December 23 last year.

But the office only received a report about the incident last Wednesday.

"The [Official Receiver's Office] expresses sincere apologies for the loss and for the delay in reporting the incident," a spokesperson for the office said.

The tapes were stored in a locked protective case and information on them had been encrypted by a system "used extensively in government and military applications", according to the office.

"The [Official Receiver's Office] considers that the risk of leakage of personal data from the tapes is extremely low. Based on the current investigation, there is no evidence that the data contained on the tapes has been read or compromised," the spokesperson said.

"The tapes contained personal data of about 76,000 individuals, including creditors of insolvency cases and serving staff of the [Official Receiver's Office]."

The office said it has made changes to existing procedures and is conducting a thorough investigation, including on the delay in reporting the incident to senior management.

Appropriate disciplinary actions will be taken, the office added.