Fergie's Tech Blog

U.S. Navy Secretary Laments Continued Loss of Private Data

Sebastian Sprenger writes on FCW.com:

The Navy continues to wrestle with maintaining control of service members’ personal information.

“Unfortunately, numerous naval messages, media attention and changes to policy have had only a limited impact on improving our handling and safeguarding of [personally identifiable information], and losses have continued,” Navy Secretary Donald Winter wrote in a July 7 message to all Navy and Marine Corps personnel.

Personally identifiable information includes names, Social Security numbers, biometric records and medical histories.

In the past 19 months, Navy officials reported more than 100 incidents of such information of being lost. Those incidents affected more than 200,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel, including retirees, civilians and dependents, according to Winter’s message.

More here.

(Props, Pogo Was Right.)

Note: Clearly, I agree with the editors at Pogo Was Right when they say that "...I don't remember seeing 100 incidents involving breaches of information involving the Navy in the past 19 months. Once again, it is clear that we only hear about the tip of the iceberg..."

posted by Fergie @ 8/09/2007 05:17:00 PM