As far as kneejerk reactions go, that takes the chocolate digestive. These people are tasked with defending this nation, for goodness sake. Presumably, as the tax payer has paid for these officials to have portable computers, they need to work remotely some or all of the time?
The questions should revolve around what was such sensitive data doing on the laptop in the first place, and how good was the encryption supposedly applied to the files.
The answer to the first one is probably convenience or negligence. But if the answer to the second is ‘James Bond would find it hard to get into that file’, the problem may be less serious than the tabloids think.
Again, it all comes down to a lack of procedures. Files including such an incredible level of personal details on people who are or might become members of our armed forces are obviously sensitive. Letting them be downloaded to a laptop should be a breach of procedures. Then leaving the said laptop in your car is adding insult to injury.
Interestingly enough, just to amuse the officials at the MoD who banned laptops leaving the building, I have only ever lost one laptop on my watch. Not even mine. It belonged to someone who had left, and I was sort of babysitting it. I left it on his desk to work on the next day, and in the morning, it was gone.
They are portable you see, people steal them.
Hugh Bessant
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 22 Nov 2008
Total Posts: 309
