GAO: Sensitive data protections lacking among federal agencies

Fourteen federal agencies have been found by the Government Accountability Office to not have fulfilled key practices for ensuring the protection of Americans' sensitive data, according to CyberScoop. Neither full privacy plan development nor implementation has been fulfilled by the Office of Personnel Management, which had exposed more than 20 million government employees' data following a 2015 data breach, a GAO report showed. Aside from the OPM, the Departments of Agriculture, Justice, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, Veteran's Affairs, State, and Treasury, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency also had no full privacy strategy yet. Congress has been urged to pass a bill that would mandate agencies to have a senior privacy official tasked to oversee privacy planning. "The Government Accountability Office report identifies systemic failures in federal privacy protections that leave the personal data of Americans including federal workers far too vulnerable," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.