http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=509566&in_page_id=1770 The Daily Mail 21st January 2008 Three military laptops with personal details of up to 600,000 people have been lost, Defence Secretary Des Browne admitted today. The Cabinet minister, who is understood to be furious at the data security breaches, told MPs this afternoon that the extent of the blunders was wider than previously revealed. They are likely to lead to disciplinary action. With the Ministry of Defence already under fire over the loss of one computer on 9 January, Mr Browne ordered an independent inquiry into military data security. The laptop stolen in Birmingham this month - from the car of a Royal Navy officer who was involved in recruitment - contained details of 600,000 people including passport numbers, insurance numbers, family background information and medical details. The MoD is writing to about 3,500 people whose bank details were included on the database. But Mr Browne today admitted that a Royal Navy laptop with almost identical information was stolen in October 2006 from a car in Manchester. It contained details of people who had expressed an interest in, or joined, the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the RAF. A third Army computer was stolen from a careers office in Edinburgh in December 2005 with details of 500 people. The loss of unencrypted personal details has sparked fears that servicemen and women could be targeted by Islamist terrorists after police last year broke up an alleged plot to kidnap and kill a British Muslim soldier. Mr Browne told MPs that security regulations to protect the sensitive information had not been followed including encryption. He also expressed concern that the details of so many people, some dating back to 1997, were being carried around by recruitment officers. The Defence Secretary stressed that ministers had not been told of the earlier security breaches and that military staff involved in the cases thought the information had been protected by encryption. No evidence has yet emerged to suggest that criminals have made use of, or sold, the information on the laptops. Mr Browne admitted that weaknesses had been identified in the military systems for safeguarding data held by training officers. He also said that the problems and past cases had not been highlighted to a recent Cabinet Office-led review of data protection and made clear that military chiefs are likely to discipline those responsible for the errors. The latest revelations will fuel doubts that the Government can be trusted to keep details safely about citizens. They follow the scandals of the Revenue and Customs' lost child benefit disc, containing personal information of 25 million individuals, and the loss of a disc drive containing personal information on three million driving test candidates. The independent inquiry will be carried out by Sir Edmund Burton, chairman of the Information Advisory Council and former chairman of the Police Information Technology Organisation. ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org/mailman/listinfo/isn
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