That's MY data we're talking about!

Yes, Angela, I'm a veteran who left the military after 1976.  So my name and Social Security Number were amongst those on the laptop stolen from the house of a data analyst working for the Department of Veteran's Affairs.  I was a member of the US Army from 1986 to 1988, where I worked on radios in Germany.  And because of this analyst, my personal security has been put at risk.

I've been to the http://www.firstgov.gov site, and I'm disappointed by what's available there.  The site states that there's no reason to believe that the information is being used to steal identies, but that I should review my credit reports to make sure that nothing's happened.  They have links to the credit companies, but they're not offering me anything that I'm not already doing.  Since they don't "believe" that the data's being abused, they're not making any offers for additional services. They're just telling us to watch our own credit reports.  Rather than telling me that I should check my credit report, the Department of Veteran's Affairs needs to offer me a way of proactively monitoring my credit.

I'm ticked.  There was no legitimate reason for the data analyst to have 26 million records on his laptop.  Though it's supposed to be against the VA's policy to have this data on the laptop, if the VA wasn't taking the technical steps to prevent this from happening, they weren't taking their own policy seriously enough.   The analyst never should have been able to save the data to his laptop in the first place.  Without enforcement, the policy is just a useless piece of paper.

This incident is going to end up costing the VA hundreds of times more than prevention would have.  There have been recent legal efforts to limit the liability of businesses and the government if there's no evidence of the data being used.  But I'm not the one who let this data leave the network, so why should the burden of proof be on me?  I'm hoping that several of our politicians are amongst those whose data has been compromised so they can feel the pain of wondering if they're identity is going to be stolen.  Will they still think removing the reponsibility from the big businesses is the way to go?

Related News and Opinion:

• Personal data on millions of U.S. veterans stolen
• Angela Gunn: Data goes AWOL
• IT Blogwatch: VA data MIA, PAYG PCs (and biking J-dog)
• Douglas Schweitzer: 26.5 million, that's a lot of people!