The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WALLA WALLA - The Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center (VAWW) in Walla Walla is offering free credit monitoring for up to 1,519 Veterans whose personal information, including so­cial security numbers, was inadvertently emailed to an external education partner on November 1st.

"VA places the highest priority on safeguarding the personal information of our Veterans," said Medi­cal Center Director, Brian Westfield. "When an inci­dent such as this is discov­ered, we will immediately take prompt remedial action such as notification to the Veteran - even if the risk to Veterans is very slight."

The email and its attach­ment were recovered within ten minutes of being sent. VAWW's Privacy Officer, Laurie Beauchamp inves­tigated the incident, and reported the external educa­tion partner is held in high regard. "I am confident appropriate steps have been taken to mitigate any harm to our Veterans." stated Ms. Beauchamp. The employee involved received addi­tional training on keeping electronic files protected to eliminate this type of situ­ation from occurring in the future.

Every Veteran whose name was in the email at­tachment will receive a letter of notification and, where appropriate, an offer of credit monitoring for one year at no charge. Veter­ans, who believe they may have been affected by this incident, but have not been notified by VA, may verify whether their information was involved by writing to: Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Cen­ter, ATTN: Privacy Officer, 77 Wainwright Drive, Walla Walla, WA, 99362.

Affected Veterans can request a free credit re­port for one year from one or more of the three na­tional credit bureaus by calling 1-877-322-8228 or by visiting http://www.annualcreditreport.com. Information about this and other protections, including placing a "fraud alert" on credit accounts, is avail­able by calling the Federal Trade Commission at its toll free number, 1-877- 438-4338, or by visiting its website, http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/ feature-0014-identity-theft.

If Veterans have ques­tions about identity theft, they can contact VA's Office of Identity Safety at VAid­theft@ va.gov or call VA's toll-free identity safety number at 1-855-578-5492.