Loss or theft of IT equipment from Government departments;.
December 2008
Figures from the Ministry of Defence show that, so far this year,
59 memory sticks have gone missing and six have been stolen.
Their (the M.O.D.) 'Loss' of Laptops on the other hand has reached as high as 62!
This 'Loss' of laptops is said to be up on the 2005 figure of 18 and compare to a peak, in 2004, of 272.
The number of hard drives 'lost' peaked at 72 for 2008, up from eight last year.
However, it's reassuring to hear that only two were stolen.
Defence minister Kevan Jones has been reported as saying;
"We take any loss of media storage devices very seriously. We have put in place revised, robust procedures."
In no way could it be said that there is a contest is running between Government departments but,
at the Department of Health, 14 laptops were lost or stolen during 2008, against a peak of 35 in 2001-02.
It's not just computers and their hard drives that are going astray in one way or another.
Twenty-one mobile phones have vanished, although this is compared to a 2000-2001figure of 43.
During 2007-2008, total losses or thefts of IT equipment from the Department of Health reached just 35.
Added to this, is the figure of 11,000 military ID cards having been lost or stolen, in just two years, from Ministry of Defence personnel.
When you consider the fact that the theft of a computer, one computer, from a Royal Navy officer, in January of this year, meant the Ministry of Defence lost the details of over 600,000 people,
then the 'lost or stolen IT' figures can become quite frightening.
While finding these Government Ministry figures frightening,
it's only fair to point out that their are other forms of IT 'Loss'.
November of 2007 saw a major gaffe by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
They managed to mislay computer discs carrying details of 25 million child benefit claimants.
In October of this year, an employee of the accountancy giant, Deloitte, had items stolen from her handbag that contained details of Deloitte clients including, amongst others, Vodafone, Network Rail and the British Transport Police.
Happily though, there is just a little light at the end of this rather scary tunnel...
Not everything stays 'lost'.
In January 2007, Dutch prosecutors sent a CD containing the DNA profiles of 4,000 suspected rapists to the Crown Prosecution Service in London.
The Dutch authorities were keen to see if any of their 'most wanted' were running free inside the UK.
However, the disc was "lost", ... only to unearthed in March of this year.
Footnote;
As of April 2008, data has been recovered in only three out of 94 known incidences ...
The HMRC discs referred to above are still missing.
And finally ... in relation to that HMRC gaffe ...
"Staff at the Whitehall department that lost the personal details of 25 million families have received a £19 million performance-related bonus.
The payout at HM Revenue and Customs, which has seen seven data breaches since April 2005,
was a 70 per cent rise on the £11 million shared by staff in the previous year."
Source; Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Correspondent Daily Telegraph 10 Jan 2008
General Source;Parliamentary written answers/ ZDnet / Daily Telegraph
