This morning’s Western Mail reports that laptop computers and mobile devices worth £21,000 have been lost or stolen from the Assembly Government in the past two years, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. A total of 24 laptops which cost £800 each and 30 mobile devices, mainly phones, went missing:
Defending the Assembly Government’s record, the spokesman said: “Of the 5,250 laptops and mobile phones in use across the Assembly Government, less than 1% have been stolen or misplaced over the past two years despite our highly mobile workforce. We take information security very seriously.
“Equipment is password protected and encrypted as part of the UK-wide Government Secure Information Network. In addition, information is stored centrally on secure and encrypted databases, not on individual devices.”
The Assembly Government stated in its response to the Freedom of Information request that in some cases “it has not been possible to determine whether a laptop was lost as opposed to stolen”. However, three laptops and four mobiles devices have been found and returned since June 2008.
Peter Black, the Liberal Democrat finance spokesman, said: “While some thefts and losses may be unavoidable, the Labour-Plaid Government now needs to put in place much firmer systems to ensure that the cost to the taxpayer is kept to a bare minimum.”
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