Although all items are likely to be insured, reducing the financial blow, claiming still results in higher premiums. Data projectors, however, are proving to be so tempting to thieves that insurance companies see them as particularly high-risk items making them expensive to insure and under certain circumstances, uninsurable. With this in mind, RM has introduced a projector theft insurance scheme for schools. Prices start from £39 for one year’s cover for a single projector (multiple packages are available) and RM says that a like-for-like (where possible) projector could be shipped to a school within three days of the theft. Note that the scheme only covers the projector and not the installation – it does not cover any damage to the classroom, for example.
Of course there are many other items over than projectors that feature high on the thieving hit list, such as laptop computers, PDAs, mobile phones, iPods, DVD players and flat-screen displays. Insurer Zurich Municipal notes that one local authority has seen the costs of thefts from schools almost treble in the space of two years, from £350,000 in 2002 to around £1 million in 2004. Approximately, 40 per cent of the value of these losses related to laptops. Zurich adds that the main factor behind these figures is the increasing use of laptops, which have not been matched by improvements in security to make them harder to steal. A local primary school in my area had three laptops stolen within a week. Leaving aside the monetary value, there’s the disruption caused by loss of resources and information and the danger that confidential details could be seen by others.
Zurich notes that there are basically two categories of laptop thefts – bulk thefts (usually as a result of a break-in) and individual, opportunistic thefts. Zurich says the former can be reduced by storing the laptops in secure environments, which, ideally, are alarmed as well. For prevention against individual thefts, Zurich’s advice includes:
- Lock laptops in secure cupboards or storerooms overnight
- Lock rooms where laptops are left unattended during the day
- Use access control systems to limit access from public areas, such as reception, and encourage staff to challenge unfamiliar visitors. A visitor badge system may help
- Continue to use access control systems until the building is locked at night
- Provide regular briefings on laptop security to maintain staff awareness
- Encourage staff to take their laptops home (but make sure they are aware of the risks, for example mugging, theft from vehicles, theft from private dwellings)
- In the unlikely event that laptops remain in the same place in open access areas at all times, consider installing security cables and individual computer alarms (but note this level of security will not be adequate if the laptops remain in the same location overnight)
- Improve external lighting where necessary to improve any CCTV surveillance of the room containing the laptops
- Security-mark laptops using LPCB approved products
- Consider anti-ram bollards if the room is potentially vulnerable to ram-raid attack
- Consider installing strong external gates/perimeter fencing to prevent vehicle access onto the site outside business hours
High-tech anti-theft solutions are also being developed. In France, for example, a manufacturer developed a light blue laptop computer specifically for the education market and 91,000 of them were rolled out. The laptops also contained a built-in tracking system, which could be activated if the laptop was stolen. When a stolen laptop is connected to the internet, its location is flagged up and the authorities can be contacted. Such is the effectiveness of the blue laptop scheme, that only 62 machines have been stolen – an almost negligible theft rate.
There are also plans to use radio frequency identification tags or miniature low power radio transmitters the size of a rice grain, which could be used to track devices. And biometrics systems, which use a person’s unique physical characteristics (such as an iris pattern or fingerprint) to control access to a device, are already being used on a few products on the market.
