NARA admits violating internal policy on personal info

[security curmudgeon <jericho () attrition org>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>

http://fcw.com/articles/2009/11/06/web-nara-it-security-problems.aspx

By Ben Bain
FCW.com
Nov 06, 2009

The National Archives and Records Administration violated its information 
security policies by returning failed hard drives from systems containing 
personally identifiable information of current government employees and 
military veterans back to vendors. By agency policy, NARA is supposed to 
destroy the hard drives rather than return them, according to a top NARA 
official.

However, the agency believes there was no disclosure of personally 
identifiable information despite the violations of its own policy, said 
NARA's then-acting archivist Adrienne Thomas.

Thomas told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's 
Information Policy, Census and the National Archives Subcommittee Nov. 5 
that on two separate occasions the agency sent defective disk drives back 
to vendors under a maintenance contract, rather than destroying and 
disposing of them in-house.

[...]
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