Adam Levin was back in the studio with Gerri Willis to talk about the GAO report on Healthcare.gov that found the web site’s privacy and security controls were still not up to par and left consumer’s personal information up for grabs to hackers and identity thieves.
Since the launch of the site, there have been glitches. The site was hacked during the summer which sent off alarm bells to government officials and business leaders about the weak security protocols still plaguing the site.
With the compromise of consumer information at stake, security at the site is a matter of national security issue, but that doesn’t mean it should become a political football. The issue at Healthcare.gov are yet another example, like Target and Home Depot, of data breaches being the new normal.
One possibility: the real problem lies within a complex web of bureaucratic red tape and the hiring of the same government contractors, who failed the first time to fix the problem. Levin advocated using a private sector approach to arrive at the right solution, urging consumer advocates, government officials and business leaders to stop the blame game and work together to ensure that privacy and security are part of best practices and an agenda of “security by design”.
The imperative: politicians need to reach across the aisle to protect consumer’s personal information. “This is not about red states or blue states”, he said. “When it comes to [security], we are all in a state of emergency.”
