"Memory" sticks lost by "intelligence" officers. How ironic.

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The secret services are not very secretive about their secrets, it seems. Nor is the Ministry of Defence very defensive over its sensitive information. The Treasury does not seem to particularly treasure its confidential files, and when it comes to data protection the Ministry of Justice is, well, just awful.

These conclusions follow yet another “incident” in which vital, clandestine information has gone walkabout from official hands. A handheld MI5 computer believed to contain information about fighting terrorism has been stolen from a house in Greater Manchester.

The palmtop device was stolen by a burglar who entered the house through an open window on Sunday night, it was revealed today.

One would be forgiven for assuming that an MI5 agent learns, in around lesson two or the three of Espionage for Dummies, that “leaving the window open” is a big no-no in counter-terrorism and covert intelligence gathering. Let’s not make it easy for them, come on. At least put up a “No sensitive terrorism-based information is stored in this house overnight” sign. Something.

Much has been said and written about the raft of sensitive documents left on trains, stolen on hard-drives or mysteriously disappeared in couriers’ vans, but let us look at just how many such incidents there have been in the last 11 months alone.

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A good starting point would be the loss of the two infamous computer discs by HM Revenue and Customs in November 2007. The discs contained the entire child benefit records of 25 million people – over 7 million families overall.

The discs, sent from an HRMC office in the north-east to the National Audit Office in London, never arrived. And nor did the £20,000 reward, because they were never recovered.

Still, it was only the names, dates of birth, addresses and bank details of almost every family in the country, never mind.

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One month later, the details of three million candidates for the UK driving theory test went missing from a hard-drive. In Iowa. In the US.

So, some red-neck is currently trying to work out what happened to the humped pelican and what he is crossing.

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Just one more month later, in January 2008, a Royal Navy officer’s laptop was stolen from his car in Edinburgh, along with the passport and National Insurance details of 600,000 people who had expressed an interest in joining the Navy and RAF.

Thankfully, they will probably be safe from terrorists on the sea and in the air, but should probably avoid dry land for a bit.

4

In April this year, an Army Captain had his laptop stolen from beneath his chair in a McDonald’s restaurant.

Though no sensitive information was lost, the junk-food habits of Britain’s top army personnel were shockingly brought to light at the very least.

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There was a two month lull in reckless data storage until June this year, when a senior Cabinet Office intelligence officer left a file marked “UK Top Secret” on a commuter train.

One can only assume that “intelligence” is being used ironically here.

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Also in June, the details of 5,000 Ministry of Justice employees went astray after another private delivery firm’s butterfingered exploits.

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Then they were on a roll. In July, the MoD confirmed that they had had 121 USB memory sticks and 747 laptops lost or stolen in the last year.

Still, 32 of those have since been recovered, meaning that only 96% of them remain to find.

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In an effort to maintain the month-on-month record of mislaid data, August saw the details of all 84,000 prisoners in the UK lost on a Home Office memory stick, including the information on 10,000 prolific offenders.

Presumably, prolific offender number 10,001 is perusing the files of his fellow criminals as we speak.

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Then, just last month, robbers broke into a laughably named “high-security” section of RAF Innsworth and stole a number of portable hard-drives containing the details of up to 900,000 current and former RAF staff.

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Which brings us up to our friend the draught-loving MI5 agent who is down one top-secret palmtop computer after last weekend.


So, what have they learned from these experiences? (Apart from absolutely nothing, which is the obvious answer.)

Firstly, all computer memory sticks should be glued and/or chained to the hands of all Government employees, who clearly cannot resist the temptation to upload sensitive information onto them and then leave them all over the shop like car-keys.

Secondly, terrorists are not clever. They do not need to be clever. They just need to wait for a spy to leave the MI6 front door open or for GCHQ to set their password to “password01” and bob will most certainly be their uncle.

It also seems pretty naïve to blame “the Government”. A Tory government would almost certainly stumble down Whitehall, drunk on port and pheasant, and mislay all our sensitive data (stored in their top hats) after tripping over their man-servants. Or some such.

Anyway, it is relatively clear that there is relatively little to worry about. Chances are that most of the thieves in question are shell-suit-clad hooligans who would not know one end of a memory stick from another if it didn’t say “plug me in here”.

The chances of them cracking highly encrypted MI5 files or dropping in on MoJ workers in the dead of night is fairly slim. As is the chance of them bumping into Osama Bin Laden and flogging him the information.

So rest easy, Government officials. But close the window, for goodness sake.

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