Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data their Department holds on the (a) number and (b) total cost of replacing (i) laptops, (ii) mobile phones, (iii) memory sticks and (iv) external hard drives that have been (A) lost and (B) stolen in the last year.

Please find the requested data summarised in the table below:

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has around 91,875 employees across the department. The proportion of lost and stolen devices therefore are low compared to this number.

The MoJ, including its executive agencies (HM Courts & Tribunals Service, HM Prison & Probation Service, Legal Aid Agency, Office of the Public Guardian and Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority) and smaller public bodies, treats lost or stolen devices seriously and have processes in place to ensure that when a device is reported as lost or stolen, action is taken immediately to disable the device.  All incidents are subjected to an initial security risk assessment with further action on a proportional basis.

It is MoJ policy that all laptops and removable media are encrypted to minimise the impact if a loss were to occur. All mobile phones are deactivated once reported missing to minimise the impact if a loss was to occur.

There is also published guidance on what to do which can be found via this link: https://security-guidance.service.justice.gov.uk/lost-devices-incidents/#lost-devices-or-other-it-security-incidents.