GSA assesses security for federal credit card data
- By Jason Miller
- Mar 21, 2005
GSA's Stephen Perry
Under pressure from lawmakers to ensure federal charge card data is safe, the General Services Administration will review the security policies of all its SmartPay contractors.
The reviews follow on last month's revelation that one of the vendors, Bank of America Corp., had lost tapes containing the records of 1.2 million federal employees.
In response to questions from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, GSA administrator Stephen Perry noted in a letter that the agency will ensure that Bank One of Wilmington, Del., Citibank of New York, Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh and US Bank of Minneapolis will 'provide adequate protection for personal information of federal employees.'
GSA and the Defense Department also will conduct a joint risk assessment to review Bank of America security procedures, Perry said.
The Charlotte, N.C., company lost tapes with information about more than 900,000 Defense employees, DOD officials said.
GSA did not offer details about the review of SmartPay vendors or the joint risk assessment.
'GSA is taking all appropriate steps
to ensure that SmartPay contractors maintain security policies consistent with current industry standards,' said MaryAlice Johnson, an agency spokeswoman. 'We expect these activities to continue in the coming weeks.'