Text 10371, 85 rader
Skriven 2006-03-27 16:28:44 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
Ärende: Yet another Bush subcontracting away security
=====================================================
From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@hotmail.com>

Well Jeb Bush pushed to have the State's personnel system privatized

http://www.hrotoday.com/Magazine.asp?artID=515

By going on the outsourcing offensive right now, President Bush is borrowing a
page from his younger brother, Jeb Bush. After two years of painstaking effort,
the Florida Governor successfully contracted out the state's personnel
functions in 2002

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/03/24/76798_HNoffshoreleak_1.html?source=NL
C-SEC2006-03-27

Offshoring cited in Florida data leak The state estimates that 108,000
employees may be affected by the data breach

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service March 24, 2006
Florida state employees are being warned that their personal information may
have been compromised after work on the state's People First payroll and human
resources system was improperly subcontracted to a company in India.

Employees who worked for the state during an 18 month period between Jan. 1,
2003 and June 30, 2004 may be affected, according to an e-mail message sent to
all state employees on March 16. The state's Department of Management Services
(DMS), which oversees the People First system, estimates that 108,000 current
and former state employees may be affected by the data breach, although that
estimate could change as the department's investigation into the matter
continues.

The e-mail was sent after a subcontractor of outsourcing service provider
Convergys improperly allowed subcontractors in India to index state personnel
files, said DMS spokeswoman Tiffany Koenigkramer. The offshoring was done as
part of Convergys's nine-year, $350 million contract to manage the state's
personnel work.

Convergys had subcontracted the indexing work to GDXdata, in Denver, which
itself turned to a subcontractor in India, a violation of the GDXdata contract
with Convergys, the DMS said. Convergys has since cancelled its contract with
GDXdata, the agency said.

Convergys says that this offshore work was done without its knowledge.
"Convergys was misled by GDX, one of several subcontractors hired to perform
work for the State of Florida," the company said in a statement.

The offshore work was made public in late December when documents were unsealed
in a "whistle-blower" lawsuit brought against GDXdata by two former employees.

The DMS is investigating the matter, but it has so far detected "no known cases
of credit fraud or identity fraud that resulted from this work," Koenigkramer
said.

"It is common today for businesses and even government to use offshore
companies," the DMS March 16 e-mail states. "However, the use of offshore
services in this case was inappropriate and unacceptable."

By next week, Convergys and DMS expect to have set up a credit protection plan
for affected employees, Koenigkramer said.

That is not enough for one of the state's public employee unions, which is
calling for an end to the Convergys deal and saying that the People First
system has been mismanaged. "We want this thing killed," said Doug Martin,
communications director with the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees, Council 79. "This is a joke, and the sad thing is, we're
paying for it."

State Senator Walter "Skip" Campbell, a Democrat who would also like to see the
contract pulled, called the outsourcing a "critical security breach," in part
because it inappropriately exposed sensitive information about the state's law
enforcement agents. "We don't know how far the dissemination of this
information has gone," he said.

Based in Cincinnati, Convergys is a provider of billing, customer service, and
human resources outsourcing services. It reported $2.5 billion in revenue last
year, according to the company's Web site.

A spokeswoman for GDXdata declined to comment for this story.


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