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California tightens policy on shielding personal information
(Sacramento Bee, The (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 8--The state has adopted a sweeping new policy that aims to protect confidential personal information and better manage security breaches like the one this summer at the Department of Consumer Affairs.
The policy was spelled out last week in a statewide management memo issued by Michael Saragoza, an undersecretary at the State and Consumer Services Agency.
"Safeguarding against and preventing security breaches involving personal information is essential to maintaining the public's trust in government," Saragoza wrote.
"Failure to protect personal information can place people in jeopardy in a variety of ways, including identity theft, damage to reputation and physical injury," he added.
The new policy comes five months after Consumer Affairs personnel specialist Rachael Dumbrique sent to her home e-mail a personnel roster with 5,000 names and Social Security numbers of department staff members.
That triggered concerns about identity theft because Dumbrique was married to a convicted murderer and member of the Mexican mafia serving a life sentence in Corcoran State Prison, documents show.
Dumbrique pleaded no contest to one felony count and is scheduled for sentencing Nov. 18.
While Joanne McNabb, chief of the state Office of Information Security and Privacy Protection, said the memo had been in the works for months before the Dumbrique case, Saragoza said it gives officials an added tool to reduce the risks of similar incidents.
McNabb and Saragoza praised Consumer Affairs' handling of the Dumbrique case, saying its e-mail filtering security system detected the breach immediately and the case was dealt with quickly.
The new policy urges agencies to reduce their stores of personal information and explore alternatives to using Social Security numbers to identify people.
From now on, every agency must consult with the Office of Information Security and Privacy Protection before issuing written notifications of security breaches.
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Call The Bee's Andrew McIntosh at (916) 321-1215.
To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com/.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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