Following a wave of data breaches at the government level in the UK, including the newest Ministry of Defence breach affecting 600,000, a new laptop ban has been introduced for all civil servants.

The Ministry of Defence conducted an internal investigation and found that 69 laptops and 7 PC’s have gone missing in the past year. This new ban is to enforce standards to prevent such losses from resulting in a data breach.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell, sent an email to all senior government officials on Monday night stating that “no unencrypted laptops or drives containing personal data should be taken outside secured office premises.” This ban took effect immediately.

Provided this ban can be enforced, which is the most difficult part of this, a large amount of currently unencrypted data will get this base level of protection. A large operation is underway to encrypt data on laptops, and to brief employees on tougher regulations. Compliance will be ‘monitored.’

Via finance week, zdnet Tags: laptop ban, uk, whitehall, data breach, mod, ministry of defence