US Justice Department Highlights FBI’s Missteps in Handling Sensitive Data

According to an advisory memo publicly released by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ OIG)revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) needs to better dispose of classified and sensitive data at its facilities.

“We found the FBI does not always account for its loose electronic storage media, including hard drives that were extracted from computers and servers, thumb drives, and floppy disks. For example, the FBI instructs field offices to remove hard drives slated for destruction from Top Secret computers to be couriered separately to save on shipping cost. However, extracted internal hard drives are not tracked, and the FBI does not have the ability to confirm that these hard drives that contained SBU and/or NSI information were properly destroyed,” the memo said.

This lack of accountability, according to the DOJ OIG, increases the chances of theft without possibility of detection. The memo further revealed that electronic storage media extracted from large components are not neither marked with appropriate classification, nor are they physically secured.

The Office of Inspector General issued three recommendations to the FBI regarding the alignment of its media storage practices with bureau standards. The FBI agreed with these recommendations, although the specifics were not disclosed in the memorandum.