After more reports of personal data being lost, I’ve been left confused.

Where I work, only those who need laptops get them. And when they do, they don’t keep data ON the laptop, but on a remote server. When away from the office you have to sign in with a secure password, etc, to access any data, etc. If the laptop is stolen, you get nothing.

Most laptops these days come with built-in hardware security including finger-print readers, TPM chips and, if you have Windows Vista, technology such as BitLocker.

Additionally, you can prevent PC’s (whether desktop or laptop) from accepting USB devices, floppy-drives, writeable CD’s, to ensure that data doesn’t go wandering.

Now, I’m not a security expert (I leave that to friends) but why (and this isn’t just aimed at government who are not the only people losing personal data) is this happening?

I believe in the US they come down hard on companies who lose personal data such as this and we should do the same here. And that includes government departments. There really isn’t an excuse.