The computer giant will claim in a filing to financial regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the leaks came from board member George 'Jay' Keyworth and that he will not be nominated for another term on the board.
Silicon Valley veteran Perkins resigned on the spot at a board meeting in spring when the surveillance came to light. Keyworth has said that he will not resign and will serve the remainder of his term, which expires in spring.
Perkins is one of the most respected figures in the technology world. He is a venture capitalist and a founder of the firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, which was an early investor in a string of technology giants, including Amazon.com, Compaq, Netscape and Sun Microsystems. He was also chair of HP's corporate governance committee.
Perkins has told reporters in the US that he resigned at the board meeting where Dunn outlined the surveillance programme. It is possible that the actions were illegal. US magazine Newsweek said that it had seen an email from lawyers for HP to Perkins that admitted that the information was obtained by 'pretexting'.
Pretexting is a form of social engineering that involves calling up a phone company and pretending to be someone else. Third party pretexters phoned the providers of board members' personal phone accounts and used social security number information to convince operators that they were the board member involved. Phone call records were then sent to the investigators by the pretexters.
The Federal Trade Commission's website says that pretexting is illegal, but some legal experts argue that the practice itself is not illegal but it can lead to criminal activity such as identity theft.
Newsweek reports that Perkins has lodged documents about the affair with the SEC asking for an investigation. In those documents he wrote that it is a "sad duty" to report "probable unlawful conduct, improper board procedures and breakdowns in corporate governance" at the firm.
"The situation is regrettable," Dunn has said in a statement provided to the Wall Street Journal. "But the bottom line is that the board has asserted its commitment to upholding the standards of confidentiality that are critical to its functioning."
"A board can't serve effectively if there isn't complete trust that what gets discussed stays in the room," she said.
