UK's second biggest police force admits memory stick loss

Yet another data blunder

UK's second biggest police force admits memory stick loss. Biz, Gadgets, Memory devices 0

15 September 2008 15:10 GMT / By Katie Scott

Another week, another data scandal - and this time it's the UK's second largest police force that is facing press scrutiny.

West Midlands Police has admitted to the Home Secretary that it has lost a memory stick, but has yet to own up to what information is contained on it.

The force is keeping very quiet at the moment.

A police spokeswoman told the BBC: "We are conducting searches in an attempt to recover the lost item".

He added: "We will not comment in relation to the contents of that memory stick".

However, local newspapers say that the device contains "top-secret information on terror suspects".

The Birmingham Mail on Monday is claiming that the 4GB stick was taken out of a police station in Castle Vale, Birmingham, by an officer on patrol last week and it was then when it went missing.

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Comments

  • 1/ Why is highly sensitive/confidential material being stored on a portable (read as: easy to lose) thumb drive?

    2/ Why isn't this thumb drive at the very least encrypted?

    3/ Why aren't these police officers/government officials/secret services (depending on the week of the month!) using remote web clients that access all publicly restricted data from a secure central database? Where offline copies are strictly prohibited through software.

    4/ How can it be that my own data protection and access methods for such 'trivialities' as music and video are *more* secure than my countries bi-annually CC'd record of my very existence?!

    Horrifying.     Posted by L.Rawlins, UK
  • If they phone me I will give them a number they can give their insurance company so they can make a claim.
    Thats is as much they would do for the rest of the populace.

    Nemo     Posted by Jon Nemo, UK

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