It appears that the VA is doing something in response to the recent veteran’s data theft.
For years, Veteran’s Administration employees have been taking home confidential data of veterans to do claims work. No more.
I’ve received the following memo from a reader:
June 7, 2006
To All VBA Regional Office Directors:
This e-mail confirms and clarifies the direction provided earlier today by the Office of Field Operations to all Regional Office Directors and the Director of the Appeals Management Center.
As directed by the Secretary in the memorandum dated June 6, 2006 below, VBA’s practice of allowing Veterans Service Center employees to remove claims files from their regular duty stations to adjudicate claims at alternative work sites is suspended immediately.
Regional Office Directors must immediately inform all of their Veterans Service Center employees (including AMC employees) who perform claims processing activities from their home or other non-VA telework site to return tomorrow to their home regional office or the closest practical VA work site. This affects all Veterans Service Center employees working at home, including rating veterans service representatives, decision review officers, veterans service representatives, claims assistants, rehired annuitants, and any other employee performing adjudicative processing tasks utilizing veterans claims files.
Employees must return all claims files when they report to their home station tomorrow. These claims files are to be inventoried to ensure all claims files have been accounted for and properly returned. Employees must also return their VA computer equipment to their home station. If employees are unable to personally bring the equipment back to the regional office, arrangements must be made by the regional office to pick up that equipment.
This suspension of all work-at-home and telework claims processing also applies to all overtime claims processing at home. No claims files may be removed from any VBA facility in order to adjudicate that claim at home or at a non-VA telework site during an employee’s regular work hours or on overtime.
Regional Office Directors must report to their Area Directors when all work-at-home and telework employees have reported to the regional office and all files have been returned. Area Directors should provide a consolidated report for their stations to OFO by COB Thursday. Identify in your reports any exceptions that might prevent full compliance immediately (employee on annual leave, etc.). Please direct any questions through your Area Director to ensure coordinated and consistent guidance to all offices.
Thank you for your immediate attention to this important issue.
Daniel L. Cooper
Under Secretary for Benefits
The Army Chief of Staff and Command Sergeant Major of the Army also sent an All Hands alert today, warning that up to 20 million veteran’s data have been compromised and requesting that soldiers carefully monitor their bank accounts, credit cards and other financial accounts. That might be hard to do for some of us who are in remote locations without easy access to telephones, e-mail and electronic banking.
What remains unclear is whether issues of basic security are being addressed. I hope the right questions are being asked. Telecommuting government employees should be required to keep all electronic files encrypted to industry standards and they should be required to have sufficiently complex passphrases. More troubling is that according to my source, VA employees routinely take home hard to replace paper copies of important documents such original medical records. I’m told the only security in place is the lock on the front door of the residence. That’s not kosher.
Click here for posts related Veteran’s data loss.