So far this year, 272 laptops, mobile phones, memory sticks and hard drives have been lost or stolen from the Ministry of Defence.
The information came to light via the following exchange.
Sarah Olney, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, asked:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many of his Department’s (a) laptops, (b) mobile phones, (c) memory sticks and (d) external hard drives have been lost or stolen in each of the last five years.”
Leo Docherty, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State jointly with the Ministry of Defence, responded:
“The following table includes the number of lost/stolen devices in the Ministry of Defence in the last five years.”
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
| Laptops | 65 | 106 | 239 | 163 | 143 |
| Mobile phones | 50 | 69 | 106 | 73 | 25 |
| Memory Sticks | 48 | 83 | 60 | 49 | 79 |
| External hard drives | 13 | 38 | 25 | 24 | 25 |
Docherty added:
“All departmental IT is fully security encrypted. The departmental security unit records and investigates each reported loss from the Department. If appropriate, the police are invited to undertake further inquiries.
Any mobile device reported as lost is immediately and remotely deactivated and the contents deleted. The user account on any laptop reported as lost is immediately and remotely locked.”
If they do their job properly there will be nothing on the mobile phone and laptops for people to probe and it is all for remote access. But if there are ruggedized laptops that are used for mission critical off grid work or as part of some defense system then that is more of a concern.
As for the memory sticks and hard drives that is where the real problem lies.
Just hope those thumb drives and hard drives have some sort of encryption lock on them
Is there any way we could sell off the whole of the MOD to Amazon or e bay. They seem quite efficient at delivery. Or maybe we could sell the MOD on e bay. Mind you, who would bid ?
The report did not mention if the people losing these items got the sack or indeed under what circumstance’s did they lose these items.
Chances are the majority are locked in pedestal drawer units in offices currently not occupied, still in the possession of Covid-era job leavers, or sitting under a PA’s desk awaiting someone from IT to collect them.
This is good to know. I had always wondered how China and Russia were able to quickly modernize their military capabilities in a very short period of time. Obviously they didn’t have to bear the substantial technological research and R&D costs, which our tax payers generously took care of.
One Lap top every other day should be made a offence like losing your weapon. see if they lose quite as many again.