Ministry of Defence: Theft
(asked on 8th December 2021) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
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.
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 |
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.