VA Theft Included Active-Duty Data

Personal data on about 2.2 million active-duty military and National Guard personnel -- not just 50,000 as initially believed -- were among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee last month, the government said Tuesday.

VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said the agency was mistaken when it said over the weekend that as many as 50,000 Navy and National Guard personnel -- and no other active-duty personnel -- were affected by the May 3 burglary.

In fact, names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of as many as 1.1 million active-duty personnel from all of the armed forces -- or 80% of all active-duty members -- are believed to have been included, along with 430,000 members of the National Guard and 645,000 members of the reserves.

“VA remains committed to providing updates on this incident as new information is learned,” Nicholson said in a statement, explaining that it discovered the larger numbers after the VA and Pentagon compared their electronic files more closely.

The disclosure is the latest in a series of revisions by the government as to who was affected in the burglary, which it publicized May 22. At the time, the VA said the stolen data involved up to 26.5 million veterans discharged since 1975, as well as some of their spouses.

It also came as a coalition of veterans’ groups charged in a lawsuit against the federal government Tuesday that their privacy rights were violated by the theft. The class-action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, is the second suit since the VA disclosed the burglary two weeks ago.

Veterans advocates immediately expressed outrage.

“The magnitude of this data breach is simply breathtaking and overwhelming,” said Rep. Lane Evans (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He called on the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, to launch an investigation.

The VA initially assumed its data would only include veterans, but upon closer investigation it realized it had records for active-duty personnel because they are eligible to receive certain VA benefits such as GI Bill educational assistance and the home loan guarantee program.