Gov't loses a PC a week

The government averaged losing one PC per week over the last year, according to figures collated by the Conservatives.

A Friday report by the Press Association said that Tory front-bencher Grant Shapps, who had put together the figures from answers to parliamentary questions, had found that 53 PCs had gone missing from government over the past year. 36 Blackberrys, 30 mobile phones, four disc drives and four memory sticks had also gone missing in the same period.

Shapps said in a statement:

"Until Ministers can demonstrate that their departments can be trusted with confidential information, the Government should place its controversial ID Card scheme on hold. With more than one official computer going missing each week, not to mention numerous hard drives and memory sticks, we're calling on the Government to urgently review data security right across Whitehall."

I rang up the Information Commissioner's Office today to see what their take on it was. The ICO spokesperson I talked to declined to comment on the ID Cards scheme, but said that organisations handling personal data have an obligation to keep it safe.

"Organisations have an obligation to keep personal information secure," the ICO spokepsperson told me. "The ICO produces guidance about how personal information should be processed."