GAO Finds Agencies Lax On Data Protection

Some federal agencies that deal with highly sensitive data are not adequately protecting it from contract workers, a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found.

The Departments of Defense (DoD), Homeland Security (DHS), and Health and Human Services (HHS) have some guidance and contract provisions in place for what data contractors can access while working at the federal government. However, they have not established appropriate safeguards to keep contract workers away from information they should not have access to, such as employees' personal, proprietary business, and agency-sensitive information, according to the report, released Friday.

The agencies also don't specify contractor responsibilities for prompt notification to the agency if unauthorized disclosure of information or misuse occurs, according to the report.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provides rules for how the government acquires goods and services -- including contract employees -- but it is lacking in these particular areas in terms of access to data, according to the report.

While the DoD, DHS, and HHS -- agencies that very often deal with classified and highly sensitive information -- have supplemented FAR with their own rules and regulations for contractors, they have not gone far enough to protect data, the GAO found.

Insider access to sensitive data on federal computer networks is a chief security concern of federal agencies, as data breaches often occur when someone with access to the network steals or misuses data, or loses a computer on which sensitive data is stored.

According to the report, there are currently pending regulatory changes to FAR to develop a standard approach to protect sensitive information from contractors.

However, FAR still does not cover two critical data-protection scenarios -- the use of nondisclosure agreements to protect sensitive data that contract workers access and the establishment of requirements for contractors to let agencies know when they've accessed such information.

The GAO is recommending that the Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator work with the FAR Council to oversee changes in the guidelines to address this lack of safeguards.

Agency acquisition policy, IT security, and privacy officials; CIOs; and other affected parties also should be part of the process that adds regulations to FAR, according to the report.