State Representative Tom Weber (R-Lake Villa) and several House Republicans send letter seeking answers to data breach at the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES).
“On Friday, May 15, the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) suffered a massive data-breach to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program,” said Weber. “Upon learning of the breach from a constituent who stumbled upon the information, my colleague Rep. Terri Bryant, immediately alerted the Governor’s office in hopes of swift action to alert those whose personal information may have been compromised and provide fraud protection assistance. Not only is it still unclear if the administration has contacted all those affected by this breach, but the administration has also ignored our repeated requests for information and assistance to support our constituents.
“Today we again sent a letter to the Governor asking some simple questions:
1. How long was the personal information of unemployment applicants available for other applicants to see?
2. Has the problem been fully resolved? Is there any possibility that thousands of Illinoisans that have applied for unemployment assistance through the IDES website have had their identity compromised?
3. Will the State of Illinois or Deloitte provide ID theft protection and/or credit monitoring to persons impacted by this data breach?
4. How many Illinoisans were impacted by this breach?
“The repeated failures at IDES have compounded the magnitude of this crisis and it is utterly unacceptable that the Governor has so readily brushed aside the difficulties faced by the tens of thousands of Illinoisans put out of work by his executive orders.”