The Securities and Exchange Commission’s watchdog says nearly a year of text messages from former Chair Gary Gensler, who led the agency under President Joe Biden, were permanently lost because of a series of avoidable technology failures. 

A report released Thursday said Gensler’s government-issued smartphone stopped communicating with the SEC’s device management system in July 2023. The problem went unnoticed, and in August 2023, the agency’s Office of Information Technology implemented a new “45-day wipe” policy for devices flagged as inactive.