The office of the Digital Inclusion Team, set up to get more people in the UK online, was broken into this morning in a rather more direct encouragement of computer use than the government intended.
Computers were stolen in the raid, which could set back the team's aim of getting 6 million more people online in the next two years. The silver lining may be that at least the thieves will now be included, digitally.
Martha Lane Fox, the government's champion for digital inclusion, broke the news on Twitter this morning: "O bloody hell the #digitalinclusion office has been broken into and all computers taken :((."
She declined to elaborate further when contacted by the Guardian.
The news quickly spread on Twitter, with more than one user remarking on the irony. But it seems Lane Fox may have over-dramatised the theft somewhat.
The break-in was played down this morning by Tara Maynard, media adviser to the Digital Inclusion Team, who stressed that all confidential information was secure and that not all computers had been stolen.
"A couple of laptops were taken from the office, but they did not belong to the DIT," she said. "They were freelance workers' personal computers and did not contain any sensitive information."
Which seems fortunate.
The Digital Inclusion Team is funded through the Department for Communities and Local Government. It has the broad aim of encouraging the use of technology to improve the "lives and life chances of disadvantaged people and the places in which they live," according to their website.
An estimated 17 million Britons do not use the internet. Lane Fox, who was appointed champion of digital inclusion this year, has indicated that she intends to concentrate on getting the 6 million of these who are "also socially and economically vulnerable" online first.
The Metropolitan police said they were investigating a break-in on Carlisle Street, in the West End, where the Digital Inclusion Team's office is based.
