Travelers lose hundreds of laptops at Heathrow Airport

Passengers traveling through London’s Heathrow Airport lose an average of 900 laptop computers each week, according to a recent investigation into computer security at this international hub. Interestingly, the study shows that the majority of these computers are never reclaimed by their owners and the majority of those who lose them are business class travelers. While laptops are certainly lost at airports throughout the world, there are more incidents of misplaced computers at Heathrow than at other major hubs in Europe, the Middle East and in Africa.

Heathrow, however, is hardly the only major airport in Europe where lost laptops pose a problem. When airports in Amsterdam, Paris and London are taken together, more than 3,300 computers are lost each week. In most cases, these computers are not actually stolen. When they are simply mispaced, they are normally left at the given hub’s lost and found office. The problem, however, is that only 43 percent of these laptops are picked up by their rightful owners, while the rest are never collected. Eventually, airports become compelled to destroy laptops that have never been claimed.

The recent study also found that passengers at Heathrow are not doing all that they can to protect the data on their computers. For example, the majority of passengers have not backed up their files and around 60 percent of travelers did not enable security settings on their computers, in order to protect sensitive documents related to their business.

Thank you to Contractor UK for the initial report.

www.heathrowairport.com