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Washington, D.C.—The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) should immediately offer free credit and identity theft protection to all federal employees following the recent cyberattacks, which compromised the personal and financial details for an unknown number of current and former workers, the leader of National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) told a Senate panel today.

“Given that more than a week has passed since the wider breach was announced, NTEU believes it is time to immediately extend blanket credit monitoring and identify theft protection services to the entire federal workforce,” NTEU National President Colleen M. Kelley said in a statement to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

“We understand that the forensic investigation may take time, and that there are serious national security implications to this breach, so in order to best protect employees going forward, a blanket extension is needed,” Kelley told the committee, which conducted a hearing today about the data breach.

NTEU is also asking the administration to extend the period of time of the credit monitoring and identity theft protection services beyond the original 18 months and extend such coverage to family members in the event their information was also compromised.

On June 4, OPM said the hackers may have accessed the personal data of 4 million federal employees and retirees. On June 12, OPM said a second cyberattack may have compromised highly-detailed information for many more current and former employees, including financial and medical details and information submitted for required background checks.

OPM has offered protections only to a limited number of affected individuals for 18 months. The agency has yet to identify everyone who may have been affected or disclose what information was compromised and to what extent. That uncertainty is creating widespread confusion and anxiety for federal employees, Kelley added, asking that the committee members help ensure that a notification plan for impacted individuals is made public and put into action.

President Kelley also told the committee that NTEU members are reporting big problems when they try to enroll in the services being offered by CSID, a private firm OPM is using to provide the credit and ID-theft protections.

According to Kelley, many members are unable to reach operators on the toll-free phone line. Many say that the web site crashes or freezes and often rejects assigned personal identification numbers and passwords. And notification letters for some members were mailed to the wrong addresses.

“In short, the CSID notification and enrollment process has been a disaster for many NTEU members,” President Kelley said.

NTEU, the nation’s largest independent federal union, represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.