US space agency Nasa has ordered that the data on all its laptops must be encrypted, after losing another one of its portable computers.
Until the process is complete, it has forbidden staff from removing Nasa-issued laptops containing sensitive information from its facilities.
The order follows the loss of a device containing "sensitive personally identifiable information".
There have been several similar incidents over recent years.
Nasa said the latest incident had occurred on 31 October, when a laptop and documents were stolen from a locked vehicle of one of its employees at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC.
The machine was password protected, but the agency acknowledged that the information might still be accessible to hackers since it was not encrypted.