Tens of thousands of PCR tests processed by private test companies go ‘unregistered’ every week.
It means holidaymakers are effectively wasting money because companies are not passing on the personal information data to the government, for tracing purposes.
It is thought to be as much as 40% of all tests each week go unregistered, the Telegraph reported.
About 350,000 tests are conducted weekly.
Robert Boyle, ex-British Airways chief strategist, uncovered the ‘black hole’ in the government’s tracing methods.
"Based on what we have seen from the testing data, I think we can add data management as another area where the system is failing dismally," he told the Telegraph.
"For a system whose primary purpose is to provide decision makers with high quality intelligence on travellers arriving in the UK, that is a big issue."
Boyle said unregistered results for arrivals from amber countries increased from 15% in June to 43% by August 4.
"The data is being provided by the traveller in most cases but is disappearing into a test-provider black hole and is not being passed on to Test and Trace."
