Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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311. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of laptops or mobile phones owned by her Department that have been lost or stolen in each of the past ten years. [29293/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy is aware, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on 25 May 2018 and any personal data breaches, including lost or stolen laptops and mobile phones, since its introduction are dealt with under the regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The Department is committed to the highest level of data protection for the personal data which it processes and takes its compliance with data protection obligations very seriously.

Departmental laptops are encrypted, and multifactor authentication has been deployed to protect user accounts from compromise. In addition to this the user’s password is reset as a security measure after a device loss incident.

Departmental phones are encrypted natively and are managed by a mobile device management system (MDM). The MDM system enables the device and the data therein to be controlled and secured. When a phone is reported lost or stolen a remote wipe command is issued to the phone to ensure that any sensitive data stored on the devices is securely erased in order to protect the data and prevent potential data breaches.

The table below outlines the number of lost or stolen mobile phones/laptops since May 2018.