Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson indicated to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee last week that after the agency’s inspector general completes an investigation into the loss of Social Security numbers, names and dates of birth of up to 26.5 million veterans, that heads would roll “all up and down the chain of command.” So far, the employee involved has been notified of his proposed removal and two higher level officials have resigned.
Add this stern warning to agency officials, as well as the lack of confidence on the part of managers that employees can be trusted with sensitive data off-site, and telework in general appears riskier. Efforts to promote off-site work will now have to contend with this episode.
VA has been authorized to reprogram $25 million to support additional call center services for which there has been a surge, and legislation has been proposed to offer the 26.5 million veterans affected free credit monitoring services.
The burglary of the data from an analyst’s home — Nicholson said he didn’t know about it until 13 days later — could confirm the worst fears of many managers and IT types regarding telework. The episode further could make employees reluctant to be personally responsible for having sensitive data in their homes, and make managers less willing to authorize it, even with the new data security IT contracts and greater focus on information control that will follow this incident. Nicholson said the analyst violated agency policy by removing the data.
