Laptop theft alarms

Nottinghamshire County Council says the public should not be alarmed by the theft of a laptop that is programmed to access the identities of thousands of Newark area people.

Those whose births, marriages or deaths have been registered at Newark Register Office and the identity of many family members are all held on a central computer network.

The laptop can access this only through using two separate user names and passwords.

A thief walked into Newark Register Office on Baldertongate at lunchtime on Wednesday last week and took the £300 Compaq laptop belonging to a registrar.

In the year ending March 31 2007, the office and its part-time office at Southwell registered 881 declarations of births, 31 home births, 629 deaths, 209 marriages at the office itself and 100 at other licensed venues, including two at Lowdham Grange prison.

Contrary to suggestions made to the Advertiser, the county council says none of this information was stored on the laptop.

It does contain a programme that accesses the national database of births.

It has a second, new programme, Registration On Line, which could be used in the creation of identities if circumvented.

A spokesman for the county council, which operates register offices, said: “We are confident that any information on the laptop is protected.

“Anyone using the national births, marriages and deaths database has to be logged into the county council’s network and has to have two separate personal passwords and user names.

“The online registration system, which is currently used only for registering notices of civil partnerships, also requires a password and user name.”