Norton Presses Her Lifetime Identity Theft Coverage Bill as New OPM Data Hack Announcement Shows Increased Risks to Affected Federal Employees

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today pressed upon her House colleagues the urgency of passing her bill, the RECOVER Act, to provide free lifetime identity theft coverage to current, former and prospective federal employees whose personal data were compromised by Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breaches in light of yesterday's announcement by OPM that 5.6 million fingerprints were compromised, more than five times the original 1.1 million estimate. Norton's lifetime coverage bill, which Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) introduced in the Senate, would cover the more than 21.5 million current, former and prospective federal employees affected by the hacks. Norton stressed the growing urgency of her lifetime identity theft coverage bill because, unlike some other personal information, fingerprints can never be changed. The free lifetime coverage includes identity theft insurance for losses up to $5 million. Norton introduced the RECOVER Act in July with eight National Capital Region original cosponsors, and the bill now has 22 House cosponsors.

"The scale of these data breaches keeps rising because hackers were inside OPM's data systems months and even years before they were discovered," Norton said. "We do not yet know of harm done to current and former federal employees, but Congress is playing with fire every day that it delays passing the RECOVER Act."