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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today urged Congress to ensure that federal employees and retirees are fully informed about what records were breached in the cyberattacks on Office of Personnel Management (OPM) databases.

NTEU National President Colleen M. Kelley also pushed for quick approval of legislation (H.R. 3029) introduced by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) to provide lifetime credit and identify-theft protection to more than 20 million people whose information was hacked.

“Federal employees have had a difficult few years, facing multi-year pay freezes, furloughs, sequestration, and this type of exposure is simply unacceptable,” President Kelley said in a statement submitted to two House subcommittees that conducted a joint hearing on cybersecurity at the Department of Interior (DOI).

Rep. Norton’s RECOVER Act (Reducing the Effects of the Cyberattack on OPM Victims Emergency Response Act of 2015) seeks free credit monitoring and identity-theft coverage for life for federal workers, contractors, military personnel, and other affected individuals and requires the government to provide at least $5 million in ID theft insurance for them.

The Senate proposal (S. 1746) was introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), along with Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.).

While data breaches at OPM have dominated the headlines of late, “it is important to remember that all federal agencies, including the Department of Interior, house huge amounts of personal information on the federal workforce, as well as for many other Americans,” President Kelley told members of the Interior and Information Technology subcommittees of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

According to media reports, the Interior Business Center (IBC)—a unit within the Interior Department—may have been affected by the data breaches that the OPM disclosed in June. IBC serves as a shared services provider for a number of federal agencies and offers a range of administrative functions such as payroll, benefits and data storage.

“While the U.S. government cannot now undo the damage caused by the breach, it can at least be transparent about the data compromised, and duly inform affected employees and retirees,” President Kelley said.

NTEU continues to seek notifications for individuals affected by the background investigations breach, which was announced a month ago. These individuals have given the U.S. government the most sensitive personal information that exists, and they deserve to have credit and identity-theft protections already in place.

Federal employees and retirees continue to be fearful and outraged in the wake of the breaches, Kelley told lawmakers.

NTEU’s July 8 lawsuit against OPM says the agency’s failure to properly secure personnel data violated the privacy rights of its members. That lawsuit seeks lifetime free credit monitoring and ID-theft protections for all NTEU members.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.