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Northern Ireland Office

Answer

Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many cases of computer misuse there were in his Department in each of the last seven years, broken down by category of misuse; and how many of those cases resulted in disciplinary action. [163229] Mr. Pearson: Within the 11 Departments of the formally devolved Northern Ireland Administration and the Northern Ireland Office, there have been a total of 866 cases of computer misuse reported over the last seven years, with disciplinary action having been taken in 688 of those cases. Cases where misuse falls into more than one category have been broken down and counted separately. The breakdown by year and category is as follows. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Category 1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 Total Use of inappropriate or 1 0 1 31 25 153 219 430 offensive material1 Using unlicensed software, 0 0 0 1 0 4 0 5 forging e-mail addresses Using e-mail facilities for 0 0 0 0 0 13 12 25 personal use without permission Unreasonable extensive 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 4 personal use Unauthorised access to 0 1 4 1 3 2 11 22 customer accounts General misuse of a minor 0 0 0 0 12 280 88 380 nature (games, using unofficial screensavers) Total 1 1 5 33 40 454 332 866 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1 Viewing, creating, distributing, storing or downloading inappropriate or offensive material that could bring the department into disrepute or expose it to legal action.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

419 c1174W;419 c1176W; 163229

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Disciplinary proceedings Software Computers Government departments Northern Ireland Office

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk