Prime Minister: Theft

(asked on 8th December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many of the Prime Minister's office (a) laptops, (b) mobile phones, (c) memory sticks and (d) external hard drives have been lost or stolen in each of the last five years.


Answered by
Michael Ellis Portrait
Michael Ellis
This question was answered on 16th December 2021

For management and staffing purposes, the Prime Minister’s Office is an integral part of the Cabinet Office.

Figures are not available for 2017. Subsequent figures for the whole of the Cabinet Office as a department are as follows:

2018

2019

2020

2021

Laptops

46

63

40

32

Mobile phones

80

136

69

87

Memory sticks

0

0

0

0

External hard drives

0

0

0

0

To place this context, in 2020-21, the Cabinet Office (core department) had 9,248 staff.

All departmental IT is fully security encrypted.

Any mobile device reported as lost is immediately and remotely deactivated and the contents deleted. The user account on any laptop reported as lost is immediately and remotely locked.

The Departmental security unit records and investigates each reported loss from the Department. If appropriate, the police are invited to undertake further inquiries.

There has been no data loss or compromise as a result of these losses.

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