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It has emerged that the BBC has lost mobile
phones and laptops to the value of £241,019 during the last two years.
Thanks to a Freedom of Information request, it
was revealed that 65 mobile phone handsets, 17 Blackberry Smartphones and 146
laptops have disappeared since April 2008.
Absolute Software, a firm specialising in computer security, submitted the
request. The response included figures for several commercial interests of the
BBC, such as BBC Worldwide, and showed that the missing laptop computers were
calculated to have been worth £219,000, the mobile phone handsets at over
£12,000 and the Blackberry devices at more than £9,000.
However, items that were valued around £23,000 were recovered at a later date,
leaving the total value of missing gadgets at £217,569.
The BBC said it took the issue of theft very
seriously. An employee was questioned about a stolen laptop computer, but it
was not confirmed if any of employees were disciplined for the loss of
equipment.
A BBC spokeswoman said the corporation took any thefts very seriously.
The fact that such equipment is so portable means that not only is the risk of
threat great within an organisation the size of the BBC, but from everyday
users of such gadgets. It is not known if the hardware was covered by any
specialist Blackberry insurance or laptop insurance.
Dave Everitt, of Absolute software, condemned the losses:
"It is shocking that any organisation could lose so much equipment, but
the BBC is just one of many we've seen recently, proving it's all too common.
"In this case, however, this technology is
paid for by the licence payer and employees should be far more careful about
how they handle it."
The news follows the results of a survey that lifted the lid on the volume of
hardware that is either stolen or lost from government departments. It showed
that of 11 different departments, 518 laptop computers, 131 Blackberry
Smartphones and iPhones, 932 data storage devices such as USB sticks and 104
mobile handsets went missing. Their total worth was estimated to be £781,453.
The MOD lost the most equipment with more devices disappearing than the BBC during
the same time period.
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