You Won’t Believe How the SEC Lost a Whole Year’s Worth of Texts (Spoiler: It’s Tech Gone Wild)

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So, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-yes, the folks who fret over your 401(k)-recently dropped a bombshell: nearly a year’s worth of text messages from their former big boss, Gary Gensler, have vanished into the great digital void. According to a report by the SEC’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), the culprit wasn’t a hacker, a disgruntled intern, or a cosmic alignment-it was just good ol’ fashioned tech failure courtesy of the Office of Information Technology (OIT). 🎉

Apparently, back in 2023, someone thought it would be brilliant to roll out an automatic policy designed to “disable texting.” Because, who needs text messages when you can live in a 1990s voicemail world? This “poorly understood and automated” little gem managed to wipe out all those messages from Gensler’s government-issued phone. That’s right, poof-one year of probably very exciting regulatory chatter-*gone.*

And, naturally, this mess might just make the SEC a little less effective at responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Because nothing says “transparency” like saying, “Sorry, the texts were accidentally deleted, oops.”

So, what went down?

Turns out Gensler noticed some apps were playing hide-and-seek on his phone on September 6, 2023. Curious, he asked why. The answer: “Because we politely erased everything in line with the new policy.” Helpful, right? Like a modern-day digital amputation.

OIT folks then did what any responsible tech department would do-they hit the factory reset button. Permanently deleting everything on the phone. Files, texts, maybe even those inspirational cat memes. All wiped clean.

Oh, and get this: for almost a whole year, they hadn’t bothered to back up these precious texts. A detail worth noting because, you know, backups are kind of the point in tech.

By January 2024, OIT finally fessed up to the text carnage covering October 2022 through September 2023. That kicked off a thorough OIG investigation, the kind that probably involves a lot of sighing and muttered curses around conference room tables.

The big takeaway? The OIG has whipped up some recommendations aimed at making sure the SEC’s mobile device management isn’t a disaster waiting to happen again. Fingers crossed those texts stick around next time.

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2025-09-05 11:31