It’s not entirely clear how accurate it is, but a survey (PDF) done by the Ponemon Institute (yeah, I know) for Dell claims to have found that on average, about 10,300 laptops go missing at the 36 biggest airports in the U.S. each week. Averaged out, that’s about 40 laptops lost at each major airport every day. The frequency of reported loss is not equal, though; LAX has the highest, reporting about 1200 lost each week, or about 170 per day. 69% of those lost at major airports are never recovered.

Even stranger, the place where people lose their laptops most is at security checkpoints–airports report that 40% are lost there. 23% are lost at the departure gate, 9% in restrooms, 7% at food service, 6% at clubs or lounges, 6% on transport systems, and 4% each at retail shops and ticketing counters.

Something sounds fishy here. Assuming the data is accurate, then even accounting for intentional theft being higher at airports than elsewhere, that still sounds like a very high number. Even people who carry laptops belonging to their companies understand how expensive they are; I don’t know of many people who treat the things casually. A laptop is not exactly something that you just put on the seat next to you and then forget about, like a dog-eared paperback.

Some of the locations sound strange too. Why 40% at security? It’s not as if the laptops are out of your sight for very long. Even if you account for people in front of you “accidentally” picking up your computer, it still sounds high; again, it’s a place where people tend to be wary of stuff like that. And restrooms? How the hell does that happen?

So, being the cynic that I am, I have to wonder exactly how many of those “lost” laptops are actually stolen by the people claiming to have lost them, using the airport as a convenient excuse? Seeing as how large companies most likely reclaim such losses via insurance, it seems likely that employees might consider such theft “covered” and therefore more attractive.

But there’s another possibility: the survey was commissioned by a computer company selling a security system> I am always suspicious of “research” released by people trying to sell you something.