Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 705: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the number of Department owned computer desktops or laptops or other data devices, such as blackberries and memory keys, reported lost, missing or stolen from his Department in each year from 2002 to 2007; the number of these that were later recovered or found; the number still missing; if any sensitive or private data was compromised; the measures in place within his Department to secure such portable or at risk data devices; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1508/08]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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In four of the six years referred to by the Deputy, no data devices were either lost or stolen from my Department. In 2006, in separate instances, one blackberry was lost, one desktop computer stolen and one laptop stolen, in 2007 one blackberry was lost, none of which were recovered. None of the devices in question held sensitive or personal information.

Neither sensitive nor personal information is stored by default on desktop or portable data devices in the Department and officials are requested not to save any such information onto the devices. This information is stored only on the Department's IT network, to which access is controlled by password protection and by firewall security systems.

The National Archives, an institution which is also part of my Department, has not had any laptops, mobile devices or memory keys lost or stolen during the period in question. Correspondingly, no sensitive data has been lost. In terms of security, these laptops and mobile devices would not hold particularly sensitive data and would be password protected for access.