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Laptop sold on eBay hid confidential British government disk

  • 28-02-2008 2:09pm
    #1
    probe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,055 ✭✭✭


    This article appeared in a British newspaper "The Guardian" on 2008.02.28

    Quote:

    The Home Office has launched an investigation into how an optical disc holding confidential information was discovered hidden beneath the keyboard of a laptop bought on the online auction site eBay.

    The disc was found by technicians when the computer was taken into a small IT repair company for service.

    The laptop had been bought on eBay and taken to Leapfrog Computer repairs in Westhoughton, near Bolton, Greater Manchester, on Tuesday morning.

    An engineer took the notebook apart and found a disc marked "Home Office Confidential" hidden beneath the keyboard. Lee Bevan, the managing director of LeapFrog Computers, said: "This seemed like just another IT repair ... the customer said he had bought it on eBay and seemed quite innocent. It was just an ordinary laptop and it was only when we opened up the keyboard that we found the disc - it had the words Home Office and Confidential written on it.

    "The disc appeared to be hidden deliberately underneath the keyboard. We put the disc in the drive to see what it was, but it was encrypted.

    "As soon as I saw it belonged to the Home Office I placed it in the company safe and called the police. Luckily, it has ended up in the right hands. The police were here most of the day examining the laptop and the disc."

    A Home Office spokesman last night said that both the disc and the laptop were encrypted, suggesting that the computer also belonged to the department, although police have not confirmed this. He would not comment on how the laptop may have gone missing, nor on the type of information held on the disc.

    The spokesman said: "We understand that encrypted IT equipment has been handed to Greater Manchester police. Both the laptop and the disc were encrypted, thus safeguarding any information that might be stored on them. Investigations are now under way. It would be inappropriate to comment further while they are ongoing."

    A spokeswoman for Greater Manchester police said: "A laptop has been recovered. Inquiries are continuing."

    The missing laptop and disc will be a further embarrassment to the government which has had to deal with a number of departments losing confidential information.

    The personal details of 25 million child benefit claimants were lost when two compact discs containing the bank details and addresses of 9.5 million parents and the names, dates of birth and national insurance numbers of all 15.5 million children vanished after a junior employee of HM Revenue and Customs put them in the post, unrecorded and unregistered.

    That was followed by the loss of thousands of learner drivers' details by a DVLA contractor, and at least 168,000 patients were affected by NHS trusts' loss of data.

    Unquote

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/28/politics.ebay?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront


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