The Ministry of Defence has recovered only 32 of the 748 military laptops lost or stolen since 2004, The Herald can reveal. Nine of them contained top secret or secret data.
The Ministry of Defence has recovered only 32 of the 748 military laptops lost or stolen since 2004, The Herald can reveal. Nine of them contained top secret or secret data.
One containing "sensitive" information was taken in Liverpool last Thursday while an MoD official checked out of a hotel in the city centre.
An MoD spokesman said the theft from the Britannia Adelphi Hotel brought the total number of laptops stolen since 2004 to 659 - nearly double the figure previously admitted.
The department also said 26 portable memory sticks containing classified information had been either stolen or "misplaced" since January this year.
As disclosed exclusively by The Herald last week, more than 830 military laptops have been stolen or gone missing since 2003, despite a series of security reviews designed to prevent the removal of classified material from military or civil service property. Another 153 desktop computers have also disappeared over the same period, although only one of those held secret material.
The MoD had previously confessed to 347 laptops stolen between 2004 and 2007.
Defence Secretary Des Browne was forced to issue revised figures after "anomalies in the reporting process" were discovered.
The official total is now 659 laptops stolen, with another 89 lost, for a total of 748.
In a separate response, ministers said 121 of the department's USB memory sticks had been taken or misplaced since 2004.
Some 26 of those went this year - including three that contained information classified as "secret" and 19 that were "restricted".
In the latest laptop theft on Thursday, the official had placed the computer on the ground at the Liverpool hotel when it was stolen.
Last month the MoD was heavily criticised by a review of its data procedures which warned that basic security discipline had been forgotten and there was "little awareness" of the danger of losing information.
Hard drives of the missing computers contained details of Britain's deployment plans in advance of the 1991 Gulf War, contact information for the UK's top military commanders and highly-classified data on the new US-designed Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
Another drive contained a comprehensive threat assessment for possible terrorist attacks on Heathrow, including the 62 most likely launchpoints for anti-aircraft missiles targeting passenger jets on approach or take-off.
The loss of the laptop containing JSF project information in 2001 prompted the US to make an official complaint about the effectiveness of British security procedures.
Encryption of all sensitive data was ordered from January 2007, yet a laptop stolen in Birmingham late last year - with personal information of up to 600,000 serving RAF, Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel and recruit applicants - was not protected.
Critics at the time described its contents as "a potential terrorist gold mine".
