The federal government's efforts to extract evidence from the trail of digital breadcrumbs left by computing devices is extending to the world of game consoles. Foreign Policy magazine reports that the Department of Homeland Security, working through the US Navy, has awarded a $177,000 contract to San Francisco's Obscure Technologies to develop "hardware and software tools that can be used for extracting data from video game systems."

The idea of mining game systems for evidence is nothing new—state and local law enforcement have been using such investigative methods for a while now—but this seems to be the first large-scale effort by the federal government to extract communications and connections logs that might be stored on those systems.

US gamers don't need to worry for now—Naval Postgraduate School professor Simon Garfinkel, who's working on the project, told Foreign Policy their efforts will focus on extracting data from used systems purchased overseas, and that Privacy Act considerations mean that data on US citizens will be removed when it is found. Still, with the feds snooping around, it might not be a bad idea to review the various methods for clearing personal data off of a used console before selling it.