Losses were the result of criminal acts

THE response from Cllr Des Hannon, who has overall responsibility for Devon County Council's information and computer technology, is published in full below:

"Let's be absolutely clear that these incidents are of criminal theft and not about dodgy dossiers left carelessly on trains.

"Theft of equipment is a matter of real concern and all such thefts are reported immediately to the police and are fully investigated.

"Devon County Council has approximately 15,000 laptops and other devices in use across the whole of the county, including schools and local offices.

"Obviously, we take the security of all this equipment and data extremely seriously.

"We have very strict policies and clear guidance about physical security of equipment and how potentially sensitive information should be managed and stored on laptops and other portable devices, and are constantly reminding our staff and partners of their responsibilities.

"In particular, staff have a duty to always keep their computers and mobile devices safe at all times and advised not to leave computers on view in cars and to always take them indoors at night.

"The public should also understand that our most sensitive information including that regarding vulnerable people is held centrally by the council, and by stealing a laptop thieves are not accessing that information.

"All our equipment is password protected, and we have recently upgraded that technology to make it even more difficult for unauthorised people to access information.

"We are also in the process of rolling out a programme to install encryption software on all our laptops and portable devices, which will render all information contained on the device inaccessible.

"All serious breeches (sic) of security or loss of personal information are always reported to the Information Commissioner as a matter of course.

"However, none of the stolen laptops and other mobile devices reported in the Express & Echo as a result of information supplied by the county council were serious enough in nature to have taken this action.

"Some of the stolen devices did contain a small amount of data relating to an individuals (sic) immediate work and in all such cases, anyone who could have potentially been affected was kept fully informed and the issue reported to our auditors and our corporate information governance manager.

"Our transparency on this matter compared to some other authorities is testament to how seriously we regard our data protection responsibilities and living proof of how well our monitoring and audit systems work."

CLLR DES HANNON