British military bans iPods

You'll have to leave your iPod behind next time you drop by the Ministry of Defence for briefing, since the British military has added Apple's digital audio player to their list of things you can't bring to their headquarters. To be fair, they haven't just singled out the iPod—pretty much any plug-and-play storage device is now verboten due to fears that it'll make they'll make it too easy to smuggle out sensitive information. This, of course, follows on last week's recommendation by research consultancy Gartner that companies ban iPods in their to prevent data theft by employees.

UPDATE: The BBC reports that the MOD is trying to clarify matters and are stating that there is no outright ban on the iPod but that for security reasons they are barring portable storage devices from secure areas.