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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) will continue its legal and legislative efforts to get lifetime credit-monitoring services and identity-theft protection for all those affected in the wake of today’s announcement that 21.5 million federal personnel records were compromised by a recent cyberattack.

NTEU National President Colleen M. Kelley reiterated the union’s support for legislation being prepared by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) to provide lifetime credit and ID-fraud protection to everyone who was affected by the hacks.

“NTEU continues to be outraged that so many of our members have had their personal information compromised due to these breaches,” said Kelley, who was briefed today by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

“We will continue to pursue our lawsuit to provide lifetime credit monitoring and identity theft protection for our members and we will be supporting legislation to be introduced in the next few days. We will also continue to press OPM, OMB, Congress and the president to increase the protections and the level of service provided to those affected as well as to ensure that this never happens again,” President Kelley said.

Lifetime coverage is among the remedies sought by NTEU in its lawsuit against OPM. The lawsuit, filed July 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses OPM of violating the privacy rights of NTEU members whose personal, financial and confidential data may have been compromised by the hacks disclosed on June 4 and June 12.

NTEU’s lawsuit asks the court to:

• Declare that OPM’s failure to improve cybersecurity was an unconstitutional act;

• Order OPM to provide lifetime credit and ID protection for its NTEU members;

• Order the agency to take all necessary steps to strengthen its IT security program and protect NTEU members’ data from falling into the hands of hackers in the future; and

• Prevent OPM from collecting personal information from NTEU members electronically or requiring them to submit such data in an electronic form until the court is satisfied with the agency’s cybersecurity upgrades.

“The need for the government to protect our members has never been clearer. Today’s announcement shows that the cyberattacks may have harmed a staggeringly high number of current, former and retired federal employees and their families,” Kelley said.

Data that may have been accessed includes financial records and highly private information about things like medical conditions and personal relationships that employees must provide in order to work for the federal government.

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