Mr Bacon said: “Recruitment data seems to be handled with an extraordinary lack of care. Data on recruits has been lost on at least 6 occasions in less than 5 years, including on four occasions from cars outside private residences. In this latest incident, a portable hard disk containing data on 1.7 million recruits and potential recruits was lost from EDS at Hook in Hampshire. The MoD state that their police force are now investigating this incident but it would be much better not to lose the data in the first place”.

“Another incident involved the theft of a laptop from the Army Foundation College in Harrogate which had been used for making local passes for junior soldiers. This is a very worrying breach of security”.

“On two occasions, in February 2008 and May 2008, laptops or memory sticks containing Army personnel data were lost in night clubs. The MoD needs to explain why some of its staff think it is appropriate for information on serving soldiers to be loaded on to privately-owned laptops or memory sticks and then taken into nightclubs.”

“If the MoD had managed to lose the personal details of military top brass, senior civil servants or ministers, then it is unlikely that its ‘Lose data? Find it later’ attitude would have persisted for so long.”

“Between 1 April 2004 and 31 March 2008, the Ministry of Defence managed to lose 747 laptops (see paragraph 28, page Ev 21). That is equivalent to three laptops lost each week, every week, for four years.”

15 January 2009

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See also:
PAC REPORT: The Defence Information Infrastructure

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