Letter to Department of Veteran Affairs Re: Right to Place a Security Freeze on Consumer Credit Files

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, the Privacy Rigths Clearinghouse, and the World Privacy Forum are deeply concerned about the failure to enforce data security rules that led to the storage at home, and a subsequent theft, of sensitive personal information about up to 26.5 million veterans or veterans’ spouses. The reports that Social Security Numbers were included in the data which an employee stored at home are particularly troubling. We write to ask you to inform individual veterans about a right they may have under state law to stop the use of this information to open new accounts under their names.