British government loses nearly 25,000 security passes

Published 15 August 2006

Fueling fears about the government’s ability to protect sensitive sites, the [i]Scotsman[/i] reports that 24,500 passes have been lost, mainly by the military

Missing the point: Almost 25,000 British government security passes have been lost over the past three years, reports the Scotsman, drawing on internal Whitehall documents. The passes allow access to military sites and sensitive government offices, and although those who find them are obligated to treat them as official government documents and return them, few ever do. Most of the passes were issued by the Ministry of Defence, but a number of other agencies were similarly negligent. The problem was exposed after MP Simon Hughes issued a parliamentary request, and, perhaps to avoid embarassment, the involved agencies did not comply until after Parliament went into summer recess.

-read more in this Scotsman report