MP’s alarm over missing government laptops

Mar 9 2008 by Matt Withers, Wales On Sunday

WELSH Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott has hit out over the revelation that 1,000 laptops have been lost or stolen from UK government departments in recent years.

Details of departmental losses released last week revealed that at least 1,052 laptops had gone missing since 2001, including 200 in the past year alone.

The statistics have been released to MPs increasingly concerned about Whitehall data handling following a series of high-profile blunders.

The Ministry of Defence is one of the worst offenders, having had 503 laptops and 23 PCs lost or stolen since 1998, including 68 last year.

Scores of laptops have also gone missing from the Ministry of Justice (136 since 2001) and HM Revenue and Customs, which had 45 stolen in the past year alone.

The figures also do not include several departments, such as the Home Office, Foreign Office, Department for Transport or Department for Business, meaning that the losses could be much higher.

Jenny Willott, Lib Dem Shadow Spokesman for Justice and MP for Cardiff Central, said: “Labour has a shameful record of recklessness with citizens’ data.

“The question everyone wants answered now is whether these laptops contained personal information on members of the public?

“The bill for all this equipment, which the taxpayer has to cover, is likely to run into several hundred thousand pounds.

“These figures hammer home the message that we need an urgent rethink over the way electronic data is protected.”

Two mobile phones have been stolen from the Wales Office since 2001.

The disclosures come after the Ministry of Defence admitted in January that a laptop stolen in Birmingham contained the details of 600,000 people interested in joining the forces.

This followed a series of blunders in which Revenue & Customs lost computer discs containing the details of 25 million child benefit claimants last year and a DVLA contractor lost millions of learner drivers’ details.

Earlier this month a disc marked “Home Office – confidential” turned up in a laptop purchased on eBay and taken into a computer shop near Bolton.

Following these embarrassing incidents, the cabinet secretary, Gus O’Donnell, launched a review of procedures within departments and agencies for the storage and use of data and in January issued a blanket ban on Whitehall staff taking unencrypted laptops containing personal details from their offices.

matt.withers@wme.co.uk