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Widely reported  in the press and confirmed by a Freedom of Information Act Request made by a UK-based software company that tracks, manages and protects computers and mobile devices, the BBC (British Broadcasting System) recently announced its staff had lost 146 laptops, 65 mobile phones and 17 Blackberry devices over the last two years.  When converted from pounds sterling into American dollars, the losses approach nearly $400,000. The report also found that while one member of staff was investigated over the theft of a laptop, nobody had been disciplined.

Dave Everitt, the  general manager of Absolute Software and the FOIA requestor, is quoted as saying, “It is shocking that any organisation could lose so much equipment, but the BBC is just one of many we’ve seen recently, proving it’s all too common.” He continued, “It’s arguable whether BBC laptops are in fact ‘appropriately’ protected – the sheer number of devices that were lost or stolen and not recovered would suggest the opposite. The BBC would do well to ensure they are using the technology that’s already installed in most laptops to track such stolen devices, as well as smartphones and recover them, or at least render them impossible for others to use.”

A BBC spokeswoman told BBC News: “The BBC takes theft very seriously and has implemented a number of measures to reduce the level of crime. The portability of laptops and phones means that in any large organisation there is an inevitable risk of theft.”

In that same article Paul Vlissidis, a technical director at the NCC Group, which provides business critical IT assurance and protection to more than 15,000 organizations both publicly-traded and privately-held, observed, “Although the BBC has put ‘appropriate protection’ in place to deal with such situations, data protection also relies on the user to ensure that their encryption password is not easily accessible and goes beyond hard disk encryption; it needs to consider the laptop in use.”

He added, “Many laptops are left in standby mode, which effectively renders the hard disk encryption useless if the machine can be attacked whilst powered up. Many firms don’t have adequate security measures to protect the laptop when they connect to these networks.”

Although I have to somewhat admire the bravado Absolute Software had in filing its FOIA in the first place,  I have to question whether it’s now offering future tracking services to the BBC – effectively putting its money where its mouth is. Anything short of making such an offer – even in light of this revelation by the BBC – looks, by comparison, petty and outright self-serving.