Eric Katz reports:
Current federal employees, retirees and others impacted by widespread breach of personal data maintained by the Office of Personnel Management took advantage of only a small portion of the money made available in a settlement agreement following the 2015 hack.
Plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit reached a settlement in 2022 with the government that made $63 million available for those who could demonstrate financial hardship as a result of the breach. A federal judge closed out the case last month after OPM and the Treasury Department doled out just $4.8 million to just more than 5,000 individuals. The remaining $58.2 million is set to go back to the Treasury on Thursday, according to court documents last month.
[…]
More than 22.1 million people were impacted by the breaches.
More than 27,000 impacted individuals filed a claim, though less than 20% were deemed payable after all disputes were resolved.
Read more at GovExec.com.
It sounds like identity theft services profited from this settlement. Katz also reports:
Congress previously mandated that OPM provide victims 10 years of credit monitoring and identity theft protections. The agency has signed two contracts with ID Experts to provide the services, the first worth $340 million and the second worth up to $416 million. The Government Accountability Office has criticized OPM for overpaying for the services, saying the level of coverage is “likely unnecessary” and may be distorting the identity theft insurance market.
Do we know how many actually signed up for the available services?
But after everything, only about 5,000 people received any compensation from the settlement fund. There’s probably some lesson we can learn from this, but damned if I can figure it out yet.
There is no protection for misused health identities to prevent health insurance fraud. We have demonstrated how to protect against stolen health identities for years, and Congress and Federal agencies charged with the fiduciary duty to protect taxpayers and workers know that, yet have done nothing.