Concerned that laptops containing military information will fall in the wrong hands; the IDF has issued a recall, instructing hundreds of career officers to return their laptop computers.

Officials stated this is not an order from higher up, but an initiative from various branches of the IDF. Officers assigned to the Personnel Branch have been instructed to return their laptops. Other officers, in the Ground Forces Branch, were also asked to return their laptops.

A number of officers who lost their laptops recently, computers containing classified information, were punished with severity as the military begins taking an increasingly stringent attitude regarding lost computers and those stolen after being left in parked vehicles, against regulations.

One officer instructed to return his laptop explains that since the war, the army has become more aware regarding the need to protect data and classified information. Prior to the war, almost any officer requesting a laptop to facilitate the duties of one’s job description received one but today, things have changed.

Today, one requires the signature of a brigadier-general and this is not too common an occurrence. He believes today the IDF is going to the other extreme after permitting the situation to become too lax.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)