The California state auditor reported last week that we Californians are at great risk when it comes to our personal information, health records and California tax returns. When you consider the ramifications of the recent tax records hack at the IRS, this information is highly concerning.
The auditor accused the state’s Department of Technology of failing to ensure that California agencies were complying with security standards and encryption tactics, and criticized their instructions for compliance noting that they were poorly worded leading many agencies to respond that they were in compliance with California’s security standards, when in fact they were not.
The State of California must take the protection of our information much more seriously. California has the largest population of any US state, and this serious breach of internal systems and controls threatens all of us, as well as our tenuous but substantial economy.