Lost IT equipment caused 13 breaches of confidentiality in the Ministry of Defence last year

When a mob attacked the British embassy in Iran late last year, embassy staff tried to destroy as much sensitive information as they could before they fled. But this was not enough to prevent concerns that official material could have fallen into hostile hands. The Foreign Office referred to the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office, where, according to a spokesman, “We are aware of it and we are looking into it, but that is all we can say at the moment.”

Thanks to the persistent questioning of David Davis MP, several government departments have recently made statements about data protection. As a whole, they provide a snapshot of the way information is stored, protected and lost in a digital, globalised world.

The age of the shredder is over. Another respondent, the Ministry of