Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 400: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the equipment and data that was lost or stolen from her Department in the past 12 months; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46670/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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This Department administers some fifty schemes and makes payments to one million people each week. Because of the nature, scale and diversity of its work, the Department holds extensive and detailed personal information about its customers and takes its responsibilities to safeguard this data extremely seriously. Every effort is made by the Department and the agencies under its aegis to ensure that personal customer data is held securely.

In the past 12 months, the following equipment and data was lost or stolen from the Department:

Two Desktops — Social Welfare Local Office, Buncrana, Co. Donegal;

Two Laptops — (1 house break-in, 1 office break-in).

None of the equipment held sensitive data. The two desktops were used to access applications which are run from the DSFA Data Centre in Dublin. All client data is held on central databases and, therefore, no client data was held on the desktops. The laptops were being used to access centrally-stored client information through a secure remote log-in. No client data was retained on the laptops after the remote sessions ceased. It is Departmental policy that sensitive data is not to be held on mobile devices unless absolutely necessary and, even then, only when appropriately secured. All new laptops are fitted with full disk encryption software before issue, and all existing laptops are being recalled for encryption.