𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Almost 3,000 laptops and phones worth over £1.8million have been lost or stolen from the taxman in the last three years, figures have revealed. The statistics represent around 1.6% of all devices used by His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs’ HMRC) 65,000 workforce from 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25. Other departments also have issues with thefts and lost devices.

Andy Ward, senior vice-president international at Absolute Security, said: “Stolen devices are a major national security risk for government departments as they hold vast quantities of sensitive information such as personal addresses, VAT filings and tax investigation data.

“If data gets leaked, people and businesses are exposed to crippling financial losses, lawsuits and fraud and identity theft risks.” In total, 393 devices were stolen from HMRC and its staff, worth £295,818.

Over the period, 2,504 mobiles and laptops were reported lost at a value of £1,546,322.

That includes 2,181 mobile phones, 866 of which were reported lost over the past year, amid rising national security concerns.

The average cost to replace these items (including VAT) is £592 for mobile phones and £790 for laptops and tablets.

The figures were obtained through the Freedom of Information act and shared with the Daily Express.

HMRC said that all staff are required to report all the department’s devices as security incidents which are subsequently investigated.

The taxman said that the high number of mobile phone losses recorded in the period is because of internal audits of legacy devices that had been replaced with newer models.

It also said that the data includes postal losses.

HMRC standard issue devices are encrypted to government standards, and they are all deactivated remotely once they have been reported lost or stolen.

An HMRC spokeswoman said: “We take quick action to deactivate any lost or stolen devices and investigate all security incidents, taking steps to reduce future recurrences.”

No incidents in the last three years resulted in data loss or customer impact, she added.

HMRC insisted it has a good rate of recovering lost and stolen devices so the figures provided are not representative of unaccounted for devices, meaning a cash figure is “speculative”.