Britain’s spy agency doesn’t know where thousands of its memory sticks are

LONDON — Britain's intelligence agency GCHQ cannot account for the whereabouts of thousands of storage devices which could contain sensitive material, according to an official watchdog. A report by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPCO) — which polices how Britain’s intelligence agencies use their spying powers — on Thursday found that a significant number of devices including USB sticks, hard drives and memory cards are unaccounted for. Brian Leveson, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, said that GCHQ “still cannot tell me what has happened to removable media that may hold sensitive data, years after I first raised it with them.” He noted that the devices “may contain IPA-related data” — which has a high level of sensitivity.