IRELAND (UPDATE) OFFICIALS LEARNED OF COMPUTER THEFT 14 DAYS AGO Officials learned of laptop theft 14 days ago - National News, Frontpage - Independent.ie

Officials learned of laptop theft 14 days ago

By Michael Brennan, Breda Heffernan and Fionnan Sheahan

Thursday February 21 2008

Health Minister Mary Harney's officials knew a fortnight ago about the theft of a computer with the confidential records of more than 170,000 blood donors.

The Department of Health was told about the laptop being stolen in New York on February 8, but the details of the incident only came out in recent days.

The Irish Blood Transfusion Service insists the data cannot be accessed because the unblocking data was not with the laptop. The IBTS received 100 calls to its helpline,after a member of the New York blood service was mugged on the street.

Ms Harney's knowledge of the incident came to light after it emerged Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar had asked her about stolen computer equipment a fortnight ago.

The IBTS told the department about the theft the day after it happened on February 7. Four days later, the service informed department officials it was working with the Data Protection Commissioner and of the scale of information on the laptop. DPC Billy Hawkes said it is investigating the matter but the IBTS is confident no data was compromised.

Security

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the IBTS Irish Blood Transfusion Service had entered into an agreement with the New York counterpart Blood Centre to improve its security systems.

Part of this agreement was sending a CD to New York, he said. "The IBTS and the NYBC consider that the risk of any person being in a position to bypass the password controls and decrypt the data is extremely remote," he said.

Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said there was something sloppy about the affair. "It is ironic that the IBTS set out to seek help in securing the information only to end up with somebody walking around with it on a laptop on a street in a New York where it ended up being stolen," he said.

Meanwhile, it also emerged yesterday a laptop was stolen from a Government official containing details of ship-owners' names, phone numbers and addresses. The theft happened from the car of a worker with the Marine Survey Office.

The Department of Transport said yesterday the ship owners were not informed about the laptop theft on October 7 last year because their details were already freely available in the public domain. l The information helpline set up for blood donors is now open to callers on 1850 731 137.

- Michael Brennan, Breda Heffernan and Fionnan Sheahan