A data breach that involved the accidental release of the Social Security numbers and salaries of more than 1,000 Illinois Department of Corrections staffers was the result of human error, officials said Friday.
The private citizen who issued the Freedom of Information Act request for the names, ranks and salaries of employees said he was doing so on behalf of an inmate and "was unaware that it contained personal information,'' an internal investigation revealed, according to an emailed statement from IDOC.
On Aug. 14, IDOC discovered that the names, job ranks/positions, salaries and Social Security numbers of more than 1,000 employees who worked at Dixon and Lawrence correctional centers during fiscal year 2015 were inadvertently transmitted in a FOIA request that was released to that citizen.
The civilian stated that he never looked at the multipage FOIA response and was unaware that it contained personal information, according to the statement. He agreed to a polygraph test and tested truthful.
Mailroom staff intercepted the package and spotted the error during a routine inspection of incoming mail after the civilian mailed the response to the inmate. The documents were "immediately secured in the facility vault,'' the statement said.
"We interviewed the inmate who was the intended recipient of the information and conducted a search of the inmate's cell. No employee information was discovered in the cell. We also reviewed the inmate's recent phone conversations, which did not reveal any discussions about obtaining employee Social Security numbers,'' the statement read.
Preliminary findings suggest that human error led to the information being released without redaction or a full review.
"We immediately notified the affected employees and took steps to ensure that their identities and credit would not be further breached,'' according to the statement.
Those workers will be offered free credit monitoring services. IDOC said it is conducting a full audit of its FOIA unit and will implement streamlined procedures to prevent the problem from happening again.
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