An army captain has left his unencrypted laptop with the
personal details of more than 200 soldiers plus details on their
movements, army exercises and the locations of their weapons stores
after a drinking session in a London pub,a newspaper reportedtoday.
A reader handed the laptop to the Sun newspaper after finding it
under a table in the Troy Club. It belonged to captain Luke Badger
of the Royal Engineers, the paper said.
A Ministry of
Defence spokesman confirmed the incident, saying the laptop was
the captain's personal machine. He gave no details of how such
sensitive information could have found its way on to the
machine.
He said the incident was being investigated as a matter of
urgency, and that the ministry regarded all such breaches with the
utmost seriousness.
The incident comes just weeks after the cabinet secretary, Gus
O'Donnell, responded to the
theft of a navy laptops in Birmingham. On 21 January he wrote
to all permanent secretaries saying, "From now on, no unencrypted
laptops or drives containing personal data should be taken outside
secured office premises. Please ensure that this is communicated
throughout your organisation and delivery bodies and implemented
immediately, and that steps are taken to monitor compliance."
O'Donnell produced an
interim report on data handling in the public sector. A final
version is expected in spring, a spokesman said.