SEC Watchdog Attributes Lost Gensler Texts to Tech Failures
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission permanently lost nearly a year of text messages from Chair Gary Gensler due to a combination of technical failures and policy oversights. Between October 2022 and September 2023, Gensler’s SEC-issued smartphone stopped syncing with the agency’s system, remaining inactive for 62 days before being automatically wiped under a new 45-day retention policy.
The deletion, flagged by the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General, may compromise responses to Freedom of Information Act requests. The National Archives was notified in June. Investigators cited IT staff’s failure to detect the device’s inactive status before its reset—a lapse that underscores systemic vulnerabilities in the agency’s data management protocols.
