Alice Lipowicz reports:
Roger Baker, assistant secretary for information and technology at the Veterans Affairs Department, today defended the department’s efforts to protect against data theft and unauthorized access at a House hearing where the VA was criticized for two recent breaches of veterans’ personal data in Texas.
Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.), who chairs the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee that held the hearing, said the panel is evaluating two recent incidents of unauthorized access to VA data. One was this month and involved data about 3,265 veterans at a VA facility; the other took place in April and involved data about 644 veterans contained on a stolen laptop computer used by a VA contractor, he said.
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