Research by the Welsh Liberal Democrats has revealed that 31 laptops, 10 blackberry devices and 6 mobile phones have been reported lost or stolen in the last three years from the Welsh government, raising further concerns about the protection of data help by public authorities.
Welsh government figures also show that a majority of the lost/stolen laptops were from Plaid Cymru leader’s Economy and Transport department. In their 2007 Assembly election manifesto, Plaid Cymru promised a free laptop for every school child in Wales.
This latest revelation of lost/stolen data is yet another blunder in the increasing list of instances where people’s personal data has been put at risk.
Commenting, Kirsty Williams said:
“Parents, patients and the public need to be reassured that information held by the public sector in Wales is held to the highest possible standards. From what we’ve seen over the last few years, this is clearly not the case.”
According to the BBC news the Government have claimed that all of these devices were encrypted however, they have not said what level of encryption was applied or what data was contained on the devices. If they were just password-protected then that would hardly count as safe.
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