1.1M Active Duty troops data stolen
They originally said 50K of active duty folks were impacted by this theft. Now it’s 80% of all active duty personnel, and another million of Guard/Reserve folks.
Several veterans’ groups have filed a class-action lawsuit, charging that their privacy rights were violated by the theft.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday demands that the VA fully disclose which military personnel are affected by the data theft and seeks $1,000 in damages for each person — up to $26.5 billion total. The veterans are also seeking a court order barring VA employees from using sensitive data until independent experts determine proper safeguards.
“VA arrogantly compounded its disregard for veterans’ privacy rights by recklessly failing to make even the most rudimentary effort to safeguard this trove of the personally identifiable information from unauthorized disclosure,” the complaint says.
In response to the lawsuit, the VA said it is in discussions with credit-monitoring services to determine “how veterans and others potentially affected can best be served” in the aftermath of the theft, said spokesman Matt Burns.
I have a simple opinion on how the VA can “best serve” the affected persons (which in my mind should be every veteran from 1975 onward, as well as those discharged before 1975 who have active claims – you know, people like my 76 year old father, who has a service-connected disability dating back to the Korean Conflict)… embrace the idea of a commenter on my previous post, and pay for one year’s worth of identity monitoring for each of us. I’m not holding my breath on this one, though.
Meanwhile, if y’all have not yet requested copies of your credit reports, please do so. You’re authorized one free per year, in most states (GA residents are authorized two free copies per year). Used to be, the credit agencies required you to request the free copy by snail mail, although you could download the forms from their websites. I don’t know if that’s changed or not – the last time I requested a copy of my credit report was probably five years ago.
The three major credit reporting agencies are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.