MI6 secrets found on camera sold on eBay

Newspaper says info includes names, school records of al-Qaida suspects... Britain's MI6 intelligence service is investigating how a camera holding sensitive information about al-Qaida suspects came to be lost by one of its agents and then sold on eBay, police said on Tuesday.

"We can confirm we seized a camera after a member of the public reported it," said a statement by police in Hertfordshire, north of London, after the camera was handed into a police station.

"Intelligence services are investigating," the statement added. A 28-year-old Briton bought the Nikon Coolpix camera for 17 pounds ($31) and discovered the secret material when he downloaded pictures after a vacation in the United States, the Sun newspaper reported.

A document stored on the camera's memory card was marked "top secret" and detailed an encrypted computer system used by intelligence officials, it said. The buyer was not identified.

Its memory had names of suspected al-Qaida members and suspects' academic records as well as pictures of rocket launchers and missiles, the Sun said.

The incident is the latest in a series of embarrassing data losses to affect the intelligence services and the government. - msnbc