Sens. says disclosure system contains personal identifiable information and is widely accessible. Image: Lightspring/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA leading senator on whistleblower protection issues, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is pressing the VA on protecting the anonymity of employees who make disclosures.
In a letter to the department, Grassley said that he has “received legally protected disclosures from multiple credible whistleblowers that VA has mishandled sensitive, private information” in the system it uses to manage and track correspondence. That system contains personal identifiable information, protected health information and whistleblower information that is accessible to the thousands of VA employees with access to that system “regardless of their need to know,” he wrote.
He wrote that after a referral from the Office of Special Counsel an internal VA review confirmed a potential violation of privacy protection, but that the whistleblowers who contacted him said that “the data vulnerabilities are still present” in the system. An inspector general audit in 2021 recommended that private information not be kept in the type of operating platform that system uses, he added.
He asked the VA to explain its “failure to protect this information for so long” including information on when the department first became aware of the issue, the potential for misuse of the data and what steps were taken in response to the findings.
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