On November 10, 2014 USPS said workers compensation records of postal employees may have been compromised.
On November 20, 2014 APWU said ” Apparently, information regarding OWCP records that were shared with the Department of Labor exposed medical records, bank account and routing information for tens of thousands of employees and retirees. The Postal Service plans to issue follow-up letters to those impacted by the latest findings shortly.”
Now nearly a month later from the Mail Handlers Union:
December 18, 2014 – In a new development on the earlier data breach at the Postal Service, USPS has now sent individual letters to another group of employees who may have had personal information compromised. USPS informed us that a large number of Workers Compensation records were “possibly” compromised, in some cases including not only personal identifying information (such as social security number), but certain medical information and bank routing information as well. Further, these types of records go back many years, as opposed to the earlier reports related to records back as far as May 2012.
All affected employees and former employees should begin receiving letters this week from the Postal Service, alerting them to this possible breach, and recommending actions they should take to protect themselves.
If you are not sure whether your OWCP claim is one of those affected, or if you wish to speak with someone directly about your situation, you are encouraged to contact the USPS Human Resources Shared Service Center 1-877-477-3273 and choose option 5 (option 1 for TDD/TTY), Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. eastern time.
In an on-line story posted on our web site on November 19, 2014, we provided links to some helpful web sites that provide more information on data breaches, and how to protect yourself against adverse consequences. In addition to credit monitoring, some of these sites suggest that individuals consider protecting themselves against “existing account fraud” by placing a fraud alert, a freeze, or both on their credit report. In many states, victims of a data breach can freeze their credit for free, but be aware that such a freeze may be inconvenient if you are trying to obtain credit, such as applying for a new credit card, buying or renting a place to live, etc. We encourage you to review this information carefully to decide how best to protect yourself going forward, as the NPMHU National Office continues to do everything in its power to address this breach, and to prevent future breaches that may affect employees, retirees, and others at the Postal Service.
Union Notified of New Developments in USPS Data Breach – National Postal Mail Handlers Union.
Thank you, Princeton! I forgot the “s” on the end of the word , which should be datums.
OWCP and Management has always messed with employees regarding claims, etc. Now there is an excuse to pass the buck, or let me rephrase, don’t pass the buck!
Hundreds of investigations indicate 85% of OWCP claims begin with an injury and 70% of ongoing claims are fraudulent.
Has any class action suit been filed?
It comes as no surprise that sensitive datum has gone missing and quite a surprise that it did not happen sooner. Can you imagine the debacle it would be if the USPS were allowed to offer banking services to the general public? If they are careless with employees’ sensitive information and appear clueless as to the extent of the breach, how secure would the public’s money be in their hands? How secure would the personal information of a user of that banking service be?
Datum, singular. Data, plural. It’s latin language.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone! After learning about the ‘breach’ you had to figure at least SOME of the employees personal/private information was going to be compromised.