Montgomery County’s Inspector General is raising concerns for the second time this year about personal information of children being at risk of a security breach.
Megan Limarzi released a report Tuesday concerning at least 529 child victims of sexual or physical abuse or neglect at the Tree House Child Advocacy Center in Rockville. Their names, biographical data, medical information, clinician, notes and details of their abuse were available to any county employee or contractor that had access to a shared platform as of late September.
The Inspector General didn’t say whether the data was actually accessed by unauthorized users, but that the question should be pursued.
Limarzi reported on another set of unsecured documents in May. That case involved Medicare benefits applications stored on a shared platform at the county’s Department of Health and Human Services, involving social security numbers, date of birth, Medicare numbers, bank checking account numbers, and applicants’ addresses.
Limarzi says county agencies aren’t taking seriously recommendations to either delete the sensitive information or restrict access to personal documents on the shared platforms...
Those who believe in digital privacy
ReplyDeleteGo though daily life just dreaming
And when they’re victims of piracy
They wake up suddenly screaming.
https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/government/county-still-working-to-protect-confidential-files-of-child-abuse-victims/
ReplyDelete“We’re the county government. There is no business that we have that’s more important and more sacred than protecting vulnerable children,” he said. “We have to make sure that we’re taking that extremely seriously.”