Home Office employees lose security passes once a day

9.28.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 20th Oct 2008

The Liberal Democrats have revealed that staff at the Whitehall departments responsible for the nation’s internal security have lost nearly 3,500 security passes since 2001. Staff at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice are losing their passes at a rate of over one per day. Since 2001, 3.492 security passes have gone missing, and the rate at which passes are being lost has risen by 300% in the last six years.

The research shows that: Between 2001 and July 2008, Home Office and Ministry of Justice staff lost or had stolen 3,492 security passes. Between 2001 and 2007, they lost or had stolen 3,241 passes, at a rate of 463 a year, 9 a week, or over one a day. Home Office staff were nearly twice as careless as Ministry of Justice staff, losing 2,039 passes between 2001 and 2007, compared to 1,202. Their carelessness appears to be on increase. In 2007, the combined staff of both departments lost or had stolen 675 passes (nearly two a day), compared to just 169 in 2002 - a 300% increase.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“Everyone understands that things can go missing, but these figures suggest a culture of carelessness among the people responsible for our safety and security. On average, one of their employees loses their security pass every day.

“This Government wants powers to build a database of every phone call and email, but the evidence of lost security passes suggests they could not be trusted to run a nightclub door.

“They must scrap ID cards before they are allowed to treat our most sensitive data in the same slapdash manner.”