The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was sued this week in the D.C. federal court by its workers’ union the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). Significantly, the suit named OPM Director Katherine Archuleta and Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour individually as negligently causing and contributing to the largest breach in government history. Naming the CIO directly in the suit certainly raises the stakes for IT professionals.
According to the suit, the AFGE claims that OPM has failed to reveal the full scope of the breach, including who was impacted and details about the information that was actually compromised.
The OPM continues to stick to its story that the breach affected approximately 4 million individuals’ information, but other reports have estimated that all in, the breach affected up to 18 million individuals. It will be interesting to see if the suit is able to obtain clarity about the details.