Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

This question applies to procedures within my Department, so I am not in a position to comment as regards other matters. Such questions are best put to the line Ministers concerned as regards specific queries the Deputy may have.

In terms of my Department, in the body of my reply I indicated that the hard drives of all laptops are encrypted and the departmental data is not physically stored on them. There are strong authentication methods in place to prevent unauthorised access to the network from mobile devices. I am satisfied on the basis of the information provided to me by the personnel office and the people in the Department responsible for this area, that best practice is being applied and that standard information security protection devices and software are being used to protect all data within the systems.

In that respect it is fair to say that a small amount of computer equipment was reported to be lost or stolen. Nine devices were reported lost or stolen since 2002, three of which were subsequently recovered. There was no personal data on any of the devices concerned and the procedures for dealing with equipment reported lost or stolen were enacted in regard to these situations.

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