So your company has spent millions of dollars to train staff, hiring security staff, and implementing many security measures to ensure the company secrets are kept just that.. SECRET. When one day your coming back from a business trip and something very similar to this happens.

A tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. “This laptop doesn’t belong to me,” he remembers protesting. “It belongs to my company.” Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

Or maybe it was more like this.

Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had “a security concern” with her. “I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight,” she said.

“I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days,” said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With Association of Corporate Travel Executives’ help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation.

This brings up a major concern in privacy advocates, as well with company managers.

ACTE last year filed a Freedom of Information Act request to press the government for information on what happens to data seized from laptops and other electronic devices. “Is it destroyed right then and there if the person is in fact just a regular business traveler?” Gurley asked. “People are quite concerned. They don’t want proprietary business information floating, not knowing where it has landed or where it is going. It increases the anxiety level.”

So not only is the there the threat of loss or theft of machines, but now the government forcing employees to reveal all the companies information right there on the spot.

This only give more reason for software like PGP Encryption, and others, to be used everywhere it can. For companies to limit the actual amount of private data that is stored on laptops, and use secure remote channels to conduct business.

It just goes to show, as security concerns increase in one area, the only end up falling in another…

source: Washington Post

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 2:46 pm by Tim Donaworth and is filed under privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.