Olympia (WA) - Small USB thumb drives are great for most people, but they cause headaches for government agencies handling sensitive information. One agency, the Division of Child Support in Washington State, is now issuing its own thumb drives to employees to curtail the use of personal drives.

The agency goes after parents who refuse to pay child support and obviously has access to important financial and personal information about thousands of people throughout the nation. The new sticks range from 1GB to 4GB in capacity and encrypts the sensitive data with 256-bit AES. Employees must create passwords when they receive the drives and all the information is erased after 10 failed logins.

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