Thursday, June 29. 2006
Good news, bad news
The good news: The laptop containing the private VA records of 26 million veterans has been recovered, and it appears that the thief never got access to the data.
The bad news: This was not a matter of an employee violating policy. Someone gave this guy permission to take a laptop full of private information home. Clearly, government entities haven't gotten the message that identity information protection is critically important. And if the goverment doesn't get it, neither does private industry.
The bad news: This was not a matter of an employee violating policy. Someone gave this guy permission to take a laptop full of private information home. Clearly, government entities haven't gotten the message that identity information protection is critically important. And if the goverment doesn't get it, neither does private industry.
Newly discovered documents show that the VA analyst blamed for losing the laptop had received permission in 2002 to work from home on data from included millions of Social Security numbers on a laptop from home.
"From the start, the VA has acted as if the theft was a PR problem that had to be managed, not fully confronted," said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif. "They're trying to pin it on this one guy, but I think it's other people we need to be looking at."
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