Departmental Computers

Mr. Harper
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many laptops his Department owns which are (a) encrypted and (b) unencrypted.

Jonathan Shaw
The Department's computers are provided to it under arrangements with its IT service provider.

The Department has replaced all laptop computers that had not been installed with encryption software with encrypted laptops as part of its review of data security. Currently all departmental laptops that are used to store and process personal data have to be encrypted, and employees are prohibited from using non-encrypted laptop computers.