SD VA doesn’t notify vets of PII breach for two months
According to a very poorly written article in Fox News, some employee at the South Dakota Department of Veterans’ Affairs Black Hills Health Care System tossed 1100 veterans’ records into a dumpster. Those records languished unsecured for two days until another employee found them and recovered the records.
That was in May. Veterans weren’t notified until the end of July that their data may have been exposed to criminals.
The VA alerted the 1,100 military veterans of the breach in letters mailed last Wednesday. The letter informed recipients they could request a free credit report to ensure their personal data was not being misused.
Forbes defended the lag in making the notification, saying that the VA was following procedures.
The files included names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses. They did not include medical histories.
Well, the loss of veterans’ PII has happened so often, you would have thought that the Veterans’ Affairs Department would have different procedures in place by now. Maybe they should look at that.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
See, when I originally filed my claim, I got a C-number, and that should be what they use for ID’ing a veteran. They should not be using social security numbers, and neither should the Dept. of Deafheads.
I don’t know why that changed, but it’s so pervasive now that when someone wants my SSN, I have to ask why he wants it?
The VA actually notified the vets?
I figured the VA would just deny it never happened until all 1100 of them had died.
1,100 Veterans’ records thrown into a Dumpster??? Hey, VA! Ever hear of dumpster diving? Identity theft? Idiots!
But on a lighter note, I just found the funniest damn video of an idiot boy falling into a Dumpster while attempting to dumpster dive (criminal trespass, Class C misdemeanor). Hopefully, the idiot boy smacked his head and got some sense knocked into him.
“Forbes defended the lag in making the notification, saying that the VA was following procedures.” I guess that was true of how VA disposes of info, too. I mean, tossing records into a dumpster is SOP, isn’t it? There are no regs governing records detention or disposal, I’m sure.
“There are no regs governing records retention or disposal, I’m sure.”
Hillary says you are exempt from those regs if you don’t take the mandatory training classes. So, whatever.
Arrgh. That was supposed to be records retention but my pc thinks it is smarter than I am.
My PII would be more secure if I only posted it on facebook and made magnetic signs for my car.