Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General George Opfer issued a take-no-prisoners report late Tuesday about VA security policies and procedures, casting wide blame for the handling of the theft of personal information on more than 26 million veterans in May.
The report recommends disciplinary action against a range of VA officials who “acted with indifference and little sense of urgency,” and calls for a stronger, more concise policy on protecting personal information, better training of employees and more background checks on those with access to personal data.
Opfer’s report says the data stolen from the Maryland home of a VA employee in May should never have left the building. The longtime employee had been working on a personal project at home on his own time with some records. The information was not loaded on a government laptop, but on a personal storage device.
The employee’s supervisors claim they did not know of the project and would not have allowed him to take home the data if they knew. The stolen data was recovered June 28, and the FBI is trying to determine if it had been copied. The report says federal and county police continue to investigate the burglary, but expect no charges to be filed against the employee.
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1944844.php
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