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Washington D.C. — The leader of the union representing thousands of frontline border security employees today sought additional steps by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in the wake of the loss of computerized personal data for as many as 100,000 past and current TSA workers.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) acknowledged TSA’s immediate promise to provide free credit monitoring services for the next year, and in a letter to TSA Administrator Kip Hawley called for the agency to take these additional steps:

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Review how employee data are collected and stored—and immediately begin encrypting all employee data;

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Provide affected employees with detailed information about what is being done to protect them against fraud, and what they should do to protect themselves. She said the agency should hold briefings for employees on what to watch for in the event their identities are stolen;

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Provide employees with free credit reports; and

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Provide employees with an internal TSA contact resource to assist them in the event they see suspicious activity surrounding their identity.

The NTEU leader also strongly encouraged TSA to consult with the Federal Trade Commission on further steps that can be taken to protect employees.

“The burden of taking steps to protect their private information should not be borne by the affected employees,” Kelley wrote to Hawley, adding that NTEU would like “your assurances that all possible measures are being taken to ensure that no harm will come to these government workers and that this security gap has been addressed so as event such as this is not repeated.”

TSA said it discovered last Thursday that an external computer hard drive containing the data was missing from a controlled area at TSA headquarters. The agency informed its employees of the problem by letter last Friday.

NTEU represents some 1,400 TSA security screeners at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. TSA is a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, where NTEU represents more than 14,000 employees in the Bureau of Customs and Border protection (CBP).

Meanwhile, in contrast to the immediate TSA response, President Kelley noted pointedly that CBP has yet to deal fully with the impact on employees of identity theft issues stemming from the failure of CBP management to secure the New Orleans Customs House in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Employee personnel documents later were stolen from a building dumpster, resulting in continuing problems for a number of CBP employees.

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