The Northern Ireland Executive will purchase 10,000 new high security desktop computers and 4,000 high security laptops for civil servant use, it announced today.
BT has been contracted by the Executive to roll out the equipment, which is manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. The laptops will be configured with Microsoft Vista and BitLocker encryption product.

This move follows numbers of data losses by government and a data security review announced by the Finance Minister, Rt Hon Peter Robinson, last December.

The Northern Ireland government itself has lost 5 laptops since 2001, according to figures released in February in response to written parliamentary answers to questions asked by Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather, and recorded on TheyWorkForYou.com.

Robinson said the installation of the new equipment will begin in the next six to eight weeks but will take around 12 months to complete. “Government has saved a total of three million pounds in making this purchase now,” he said, adding “The equipment that is being replaced would have been due for upgrade within the next two years.”