OPPapers.com

Pii Fedeal Gov

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the country and
concern by the public is growing rapidly with each new data breach
exposed. This increase is directly attributable to advances made in
the area of computer technology and data collection that allow
information sharing across agencies, governmental boundaries and
service providers. These advances have made it easy for public and
private institutions to gather large amounts of information on citizens,
including their names, addresses and Social Security Numbers (SSN).
One indicator of the scope of the problem is the Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse report of over 104 million security breaches since January
2005 involving personal information that could be used for identity theft.
In May 2006, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) jolted its
constituents and the government with the revelation that the theft of a
laptop from an employee's home made 26.5 million veterans' records
vulnerable to identity theft. While it revealed to the general public the
risk to their personally identifiable information held in government
databases, it also prompted the VA to implement its Data Security –
Assessment and Strengthening of Controls initiative. This is a multiphased
initiative to make the VA the "Gold Standard" in data security.
The VA incident raised the issue of allowing employees and contractors
to carry data files away from secure government facilities in order to do
work with them offsite. The incident also highlighted the inordinate
delay between the discovery of the laptop theft and the announcement to
the public. The White House Office of Management and Budget quickly
issued policy directives requiring agencies to report within an hour even
the suspicion of a data breach. This has helped raise the issue of data
security to a top priority, moving agencies in the direction of strict
accountability when it comes to the vulnerability of personally
identifiable information....