Mr. GriffithsTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what reports he has received of facsimile messages sent from the Defence Research Agency at Portsdown, Portsmouth, being received by private telephone subscribers due to incorrect dialling and if he will make a statement. [15898]
§ Mr. FreemanResponsibility for such matters rest with the chief executive of the Defence Research Agency. I have therefore asked him to reply.
Letter from John Chisholm to Mr. Peter Griffiths, dated 30 March 1995:
In today"s written answer the Minister for State for Defence Procurement informed you that I would be replying to your question concerning the misdirecting of Facsimile messages from the Defence Research Agency (DRA) site at Portsdown, Hampshire.I can confirm that Mr. Wallis of Waterlooville has received a number of facsimile messages from DRA offices at Portsdown which should, in fact,have gone to other DRA offices at Farnborough. This has occurred as a result of a change to the dialling code used by DRA staff to obtain a British Telecom telephone line and the fact that Mr Wallis' facsimile number was then very similar to a small number of our Farnborough numbers.The two main issues of concern in this matter are firstly, the inconvenience and irritation caused to Mr. Wallis. A member of DRA security staff has spoken to him, explained how the error has occurred, and apologise for the inconvenience that he has clearly been caused.I am also concerned about any possible breach of national security. Standing DRA security instructions covering the use of the facsimile machines involved here does not permit the transmission of confidential material. We have no evidence to suggest that these rules have been breeched. The location of the machines in question also suggests that only messages of an administrative nature have been misdirected. We do not therefore believe there has been and serious lapse of security.In the normal course of events we would overcome the problem of misdirection by ensuring that staff take more care and by changing all of our facsimile numbers involved. In this case, however, the change to the national telephone dialling codes, on 16 April 1995 should resolve this particular problem. We have discussed this with Mr. Wallis and he is content to wait until the codes change. I have of course taken steps to ensure that all staff take more care when using facsimile machines and are fully aware of their security obligations.