AFGE Says OPM Treatment of Employees Affected by Data Breach Unfair

WASHINGTON, July 13, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. today issued the following statement:

"It is absolutely outrageous for the Office of Personnel Management to be offering fewer protections to the federal workforce, whose personal information was stolen in the first data breach, than to those whose information was stolen in the second breach.

"OPM has offered the 4.2 million current and former federal employees whose information was stolen during the hack of OPM's personnel records with an inadequate 18 months of credit monitoring and a maximum of $1 million in liability insurance. Meanwhile, the agency is offering a more expansive 'suite of remedies' to those whose information was stolen in a hack of OPM's background investigations system. Those affected by the second breach will reportedly receive three years of credit monitoring, an undisclosed amount of liability insurance, fraud monitoring services beyond credit files, and identity monitoring for minor children.

"This double standard cannot stand. Why should federal employees be forced to make do with less – less credit monitoring, less liability insurance, less fraud monitoring services, less identity monitoring? There is no justification for this inequity. OPM should provide every affected person with fully paid lifetime credit monitoring from a list of qualified providers, as well as liability insurance that covers the entirety of any loss attributable to the breach. At the very least, everyone affected by these cybercrimes should receive the same level of protection regardless of which computer system their information happened to be in."

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 670,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

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SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees

Related Links

http://www.afge.org

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