News

(2012-02-13) Withholding Complaints Is not legal

A legal case in the United States had current and former members of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and the National Whistleblowers Center suing three federal agencies along with two agency chiefs for not divulging records and deleting emails related to whistleblowers’ complaints.

Plaintiffs say they were pressured to alter their professional and scientific opinions. When they refused, the government organizations supposedly retaliated in different ways. The FDA, HHS, and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had the complaints lodged against them.

The suit claims NARA does not maintain its electronic records. The plaintiffs want copies of emails they sent to supervisors, agency lawyers, and HHS to prove they tried to inform the agencies of problems.

The FDA and HHS have withheld records or claim they could not be found when the lawyer for the group of plaintiffs claims they have had problems receiving documents. Requests for documents is a citizens right through the Freedom of Information Act requests.

Deleting emails violates federal requirements to preserve them as official government records. More is still to come on this law suit.

(2012-01-25) Obama orders agencies to improve records management policies

US President realizes the importance of improved record management procedures.

A new memo released calls for Agencies to deliver modernized records management policies by late March.

Obama said Digitize records whenever possible, noting that uses of electronic communications has “radically increased” both in the amount and diversity. “Technology can make these records less burdensome to manage and easier to use and share,” was another comment the President stated.

Every year the United States government handles thousands of legal cases this memorandum will have a direct effect on.

David Ferriero, the 10th Archivist of the United States said, "I strongly support this Presidential initiative, which sends a very clear message to Federal agencies about the importance of managing electronic records. Records management must keep up with the technologies used to create records in the Federal government, and the President’s Memorandum underlines the critical nature of this responsibility." Mr. Ferriero blog notes this is the start of an executive branch-wide effort to change records management policies and practices. Managing electronic records is very important. He goes on stating he is in full support of the Presidential initiative. This move by the President emphasizes, its critical the Federal government keeps up with technology while creating records.

(2012-01-20) 25 million Britons Information was lost on Two CDs

This story serves as a reminder from 2007 of how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.

Information for 25 million Britons was lost. It came to light that the British Government had made a big mistake. Two CDs were sent in the mail by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs division, with information about 7.25 million Britons, everyone with a child under the age of 16. Sending the CDs by mail was a huge security mistake.

This wasn’t the first time a huge amount of personal data has been lost in the mail by a government organization, the United States had previously lost 26.5 million former servicemen’s information. Britain’s mistake at the time held the title of the second biggest personal data to have been compromised.

"If you centralize data, what will fail is the carbon-based life form (humans), not the technology," says Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, a watchdog group. "It's an error on a monumental scale that will have repercussions that will last years." As a result of the misplace data, an $11 billion identity card program could now be in jeopardy say technology and privacy experts.

$3.5 billion annually is the estimated cost of the growing problem of identity theft in Britain and 170,000 people were affected last year. This is one of Britain’s fastest growing crimes.

No passwords went missing, only names, birthdays, addresses and basic banking information. Additional information would be needed for criminals to access actual bank accounts.

Phil Booth, an opponent of the ID card warns this loss of data would be minute compared to a monumental misplacement of the countries new national identity database. That system contains more people and their details including fingerprints. Mr. Booth says, "you can change your bank account, but you can't change your fingers."

Back to 2012, we now have the technology to eliminate these kinds of errors, but it still requires us “humans” to properly utilize it. Tools and processes must be used in tandem for us to keep our personal information, personal.