OPM urged to continue identity protection contracts shielding people affected by 2015 hack

Sen. Mark Warner warned the Office of Personnel Management on Friday that it should not end government contracts that were established after a massive 2015 hack to protect federal employees and others whose sensitive data was compromised.

In a letter to OPM, Warner cautioned that the Department of Government Efficiency’s ongoing efforts to pare back government contracts should not extend to those shielding the 21.5 million people whose Social Security numbers, birthdates and addresses were accessed by China a decade ago. 

Fingerprints and financial and medical records also were compromised for 1.1 million people affected by the hacks, Warner noted to acting OPM Director Charles Ezell. 

DOGE has signaled that it may strip the identity protection services put in place to protect the employees from further victimization, said Warner, a Democrat who is vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee and represents Virginia, which has a large population of federal workers.

“The federal workforce was dangerously exposed by the 2015 OPM breach, and millions of impacted individuals will continue to be at risk because of the breach, likely for the remainder of their lives,” Warner said, calling the fingerprints and health and medical records some of the “most valuable information today on the dark web.” 

Congress eventually enacted legislation by Warner to establish the identity protections services as part of a larger spending bill.

“Given the recent personnel cuts to OPM and Elon Musk’s imminent departure from the Trump administration, I am deeply concerned that OPM is planning to curtail identity theft monitoring for millions of public servants and their families whose information was compromised in 2015,” Warner wrote, noting that the identity protection services are required by law.

Warner asked Ezell to notify Congress immediately if OPM does decide to change or eliminate the identity protection services.

OPM has been one of the federal agencies helping DOGE to implement cuts to personnel and budgets across the government. The agency did not respond to a request for comment.