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By: FEDweek StaffThe inspector general’s office at the VA has issued a management alert saying that the Veterans Benefits Administration’s switch to all-remote data collection in an educational benefits program left personal identifying information at risk of disclosure.
The report, the latest in a growing series of assessments of the impacts of procedural changes that federal agencies carried out due to the pandemic, focused on regular reviews by the VBA to check whether persons collecting benefits are enrolled in the claimed schools or training programs.
It said that “in response to COVID-19 conditions, in early 2020 the VBA “suspended in-person compliance surveys and required them to be conducted remotely. To complete the remote surveys, VBA and state approving agencies asked the school certifying officials to submit documentation electronically to the survey specialists but did not specify the submission standards.”
Specifically, it said, the VBA “did not provide any indication of how documentation should be sent electronically to protect PII” such as encryption or other protection. “The lack of standard procedures and oversight of the electronic collection of documentation has resulted in student PII not being consistently safeguarded in keeping with requirements during remote compliance surveys,” it said.
In a sample of 30 compliance surveys, auditors found that 26 contained personal information such as dates of birth and Social Security numbers, some of them sent by non-secured email and third-party file-sharing websites.
“Before using third-party file-sharing websites, agencies should assess the websites’ privacy policy to evaluate risks and determine whether the website or application is appropriate for the agency’s use,” the report added.
In response, VBA said it “takes no issue” with the findings and said it will review then and “take corrective action as necessary.”
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