Easy, just have a lesson at Officer Skool on not to leave laptops in cars :ugh:

I suppose handing over a laptop saves them the bother of removing an ipod until the RN spill their guts anyway!

What a complete idiot this RN officer was. I have two laptops in my charge, both encrypted; dongles and reader kept on my person and laptops are either carried with me or kept in a security cabinet when not used. Never are they left in a car unattended. Bloody simple rules that surely even this simple minded half wit could understand.

Hopeless, bloody hopeless. :ugh:

Well, before you criticise an individual you have know a bit about the circumstances - and I certainly don't! So I'm not going to comment, but it does raise interesting questions. For example, why was it necessary to have all that data on one laptop?

Was it because the individual was so overworked that he/she had to have it with him/her so that he/she could meet deadlines?

But he/she did not have it with him/her. He/she left it in the car

I'm with LFFC on this one. Will someone please tell us why someone thought it essential to have over HALF A MILLION PERSONAL DETAILS ON A LAPTOP?:eek: Sorry, but I detect a strong pong of kippers here. Something ain't right. With that amount and sensitivity of data I'd expect it to be chained firmly to someones gonads, not left in the middle of Birmingham.:confused:

Someting is not right here. According to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces

The TOTAL strength of HM Forces was 429500 in 2006, and there have been reductions in numbers since then.

Also, according to the Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3215887.ece

Personnel from the MOD have been caught lying in public and don't actually know the full extent of what the information taken was.

So, 170500 people MORE than there are already in HM Forces applied to join over the last decade? That would make 164 people EVERY DAY for 10 years! Or is it everybody's details who are currently serving AND 170500 (19 people per day for 10 years)?

Either way - the questions that need answering are: Why was this data held on that laptop? What liability insurance is the MOD offering everyone affected? Does the MOD even know who is affected? Is there a backup of the data?

And when does the board of inquiry convene?

With all these people wanting to join the services, why do we have such a recruitment problem? Are we being told the truth here?
P.S. Lieutenant Commanders, R.N. are omnipotent, don't you know?

That's a shame, but if they joined in the last 10 years they'll probably start getting lots of emails offering them cheap viagra pretty soon. :}

Has anyone yet had a reply from the incident team's email address? I emailed my "Am I affected?" at 1350Z, and haven't yet (1940Z) had even an automated "Query received" response. :uhoh:

Edit: automated response now received, with a timestamp of 0906Z today, Sunday.

adr

To me this means everyone currently serving, plus the recruits. It looks like a JPA data transfer.

With great respect Ed - borrocks!

You don't transfer data like that. On discs or electronically (via secure mil comms) or maybe DLT tapes or suchlike. Nope, something funny going on here.

Although having spent a fair few years in the RAF this question should be easy to answer myself) why is the information being released so vague?

Who exactly is affected by this loss of sensitive information?

Is it all enquirers and personnel who have served in the last ten years or only those who have enquired and joined in the last ten years? If its the latter then I'm alright Jack pull up the ladder as its been a bit more than 10 years ago I joined the RAF but if its those who have served within the last ten years regardless of when they joined I'm a bit less happy. Even more so as its a bloody fishhead who has dropped the ball on this one.:mad:

I thought having left the RAF late last year that that was the last of the MoD being able to screw up my life.:rolleyes:

From now on I shall switch off my computer firewall, change all passwords to something simple like 'password', set all my drives to SHARE and ensure my accounts program is up to date with full account details.

I shall also be enrolling with YouTube Nigeria.

As my information will be entirely accessible and transparent I believe it will be ultimately more secure than the Government storage as no one would believe it. :\

Just like Clarkson and his bank details, eh? Plonker (Clarkson, that is)

GF,

:)

No. More like Jasper Maskelyne; everything hidden in plain view.

Double bluff sort of thing? Brave-ish call!

GF,

With great respect I believe with the laughable way the muppets in charge handle our data security, that it was a data transfer and they thought the easist way, after the HMRC CD-Rom faux-pas would be a direct download to a portable HD then upload at the required point.

Especially with the 'tight' security of our personel data on JPA......................!

A D,
Fair call, but was it a laptop or a portable hard drive? If a HD then it's just being moved from point A to point B. A laptop implies someone wants to view the data before it arrives at its ultimate destination - er, why, if it's just a data transfer? And there is still the question of why it was left in the motor? And why that amount/sensitivity of data was put on one system? And why under the custody of just one person? And ..... and .....

And why of an f:mad:g computer in the first place?

The majority of the stuff I access - public at home and government at work - resides on remote servers. If I need something then I get that file and that file alone.

What on earth would anyone want with SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND records?

At 66 lines per A4 page that would be 9090 pages for a one line entry.

It is one mega database and you could play with it all day.

How many successful applicants bank with Barclays?
How many unsuccessful applicants were women?

etc etc.

FFS