On July 8, in noting NTEU’s lawsuit over the OPM hack, I had questioned the suit’s claim that the government breach constituted a violation of their “constitutional right to informational privacy.” Jennifer E. Canfield of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads LLP also picked up on that point and discusses the issue on Montgomery McCracken Data Privacy…
Category: Government Sector
More than 1,000 employees in Anchorage veterans administration notified of breach due to employee error
On June 10, the Salt Lake City Regional Office of the Veterans Administration was notified that the The Wounded Warrior Program Office in Seattle had received a box from a veteran in Anchorage. The veteran had previously gone to the Anchorage office in April to request a copy of her VA file, and several weeks later, had returned to…
Almost 500 veterans notified of breach due to mailing label errors by medical supply vendor
A Veterans Administration incident report started with a report that 121 patients of the Charleston, SC facility received medical supplies from Medline Industries intended for 121 other patients. The error was the medical supplier’s packing error. It seems that in April, the supplier had installed a new automated system for applying shipping labels to packages, and the new…
Albuquerque veterans’ information exposed in human error breach
Errors continue to plague the Veterans Administration System. In its June report, the Albuquerque VA reported that a veteran returned a a list to the Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF-OIF) Office. He had found the list containing 73 veterans’ full names and full Social Security Numbers with appointment dates in paperwork he had picked up…
Army thought breach notification emails were phishing attempts
Oops. Jana Winter reports: Last month, in the wake of a series of massive breaches at the federal Office of Personnel Management, the Army issued a bulletin warning that some victims were being hit by hackers a second time, this time with an email phishing campaign asking them to input personal information into a third-party website to receive…
U.S. decides against publicly blaming China for OPM hack
Ellen Nakashima reports: Months after the discovery of a massive breach of U.S. government personnel records, the Obama administration has decided against publicly blaming China for the intrusion in part out of reluctance to reveal the evidence that American investigators have assembled, U.S. officials said. The administration also appears to have refrained from any direct…