British Goverment Loses A Computer A Week, But What About The Data?

from the data-is-all-that-really-matters dept

New stats from the British government show its various departments lost an average of one computer per week over the past year. The good news is that the government says only one of those losses put any personal data at risk -- although it's hard to verify the claims of some departments that the data on their devices was encrypted or otherwise made safe. It's hard to get too upset about the missing devices, since it seems inevitable that any any organization with a large number of employees carrying laptops and other devices around will lose some or have them stolen. The issue isn't the devices, or at least it shouldn't be; the issue is data. It may be an easy way to score political points by pointing out how often physical devices are lost, but the value of a $2000 laptop or $500 smartphone pales in comparison to the value of the data, or the data it can access. Care must be taken to ensure that security policies and procedures don't place importance on securing physical devices at the expense of securing data. For a start, it would be nice to make people accountable for data they have, but that's probably a stretch.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Woman Sues Best Buy For $54 Million Over Lost Laptop

from the some-attention-please... dept

It's tough to value a lost laptop. After all, there are often all sorts of private information and content of sentimental value on a laptop. So, when a woman discovered that Best Buy had lost the laptop she gave them to fix (after repeatedly lying to her about how soon the laptop would be fixed), she decided to sue the retailer for $54 million (found via Engadget). She admits that she's not really expecting to get the $54 million, and simply chose that number to get media attention (it's working), but given the run around that Best Buy gave her, it's not too surprising that she rejected its last offer of $2500, a $900 gift card and a refund on the laptop. Originally, the company had just offered her the gift card (less than the cost of the computer). It wasn't until she filed the lawsuit that Best Buy seemed willing to offer something more. The woman also had some friends contact the store manager of the store that lost the laptop, and he responded to them by saying "we strive to deliver the experience that every customer deserves to receive" and "not every customer can be satisfied." That seems like a pretty weak response to having completely lost someone's laptop you were supposed to repair.

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