Employee Data Security Incident
News & Happenings
May 4, 2007
Public Statement on Employee Data Security Incident
WASHINGTON – On Thursday, May 3, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) became aware of a potential data security incident involving approximately 100,000 archived employment records of individuals employed by the agency from January 2002 until August 2005. An external hard drive containing personnel data (including name, social security number, date of birth, payroll information, bank account and routing information) was discovered missing from a controlled area at the TSA Headquarters Office of Human Capital. It is unclear at this stage whether the device is still within headquarters or was stolen. TSA immediately reported the incident to senior DHS and law enforcement officials and launched an investigation.
TSA is treating this incident as a criminal matter and has asked the FBI to investigate. The U.S. Secret Service is also assisting in the forensic review of equipment and facilities. TSA is cooperating fully.
TSA has begun to notify directly all affected individuals and provide them with information about how to protect against identity fraud. As an extra safeguard, TSA is developing a process to purchase credit monitoring services for all affected current and former employees for a period of one year, as necessary. Procedures for claiming this benefit, links to the credit reporting agencies and other information is available at www.tsa.gov.
TSA has extensive data protections protocols and training in place for its employees regarding data privacy. TSA has zero tolerance for employees not following policies on data protection and will take swift disciplinary action, including dismissal, against individuals found to be in violation of our procedures.
