GCHQ still lacks a clear count of lost removable storage drives
The gap in its records has been flagged for years, and the data on the missing devices remains unconfirmed.
Britain's Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office has raised concern that GCHQ, the UK's signals intelligence and cybersecurity agency, still lacks a clear picture of how many removable storage drives have gone missing, where they are, and whether they can be recovered. The losses were flagged to GCHQ several years ago, and the commissioner, Lord Brian Leveson, said the time since then increases the need for senior attention and remediation. GCHQ says its tracking of removable media was inadequate, that the findings have been addressed, and that it has started a search program for the missing devices. The agency has also committed to an automated asset-tracking system to be running before 2027. Neither GCHQ nor the commissioner has confirmed what data the drives held, though they could relate to agency operations or administration.
Why it matters
The lost drives matter to the public because GCHQ has not established how many are missing, where they are, or whether they can be recovered, and it has not said what data they held. The agency has acknowledged its tracking of removable media was inadequate and has committed to an automated asset-tracking system before 2027. A similar loss at the Ministry of Defence between 2003 and 2008, involving 87 classified USB drives, shows that losing classified removable media is not new in British government. Until GCHQ can account for the devices, the public cannot judge how much sensitive material is at risk.
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