The D.C. agency charged with licensing and investigating alcoholic beverage merchants stored reams of sensitive data in boxes on a hallway floor, leaving personal information of licensees vulnerable to theft, auditors recently discovered.
During an on-site review of the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, an inspector with the Office of the Inspector General observed roughly 100 boxes “stored openly in ABRA hallways.” The information, the inspector wrote in a management alert to the agency, was “vulnerable to unauthorized access and theft.”
The boxes contained applicant information, including home addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and the results of criminal history record checks.
“It’s like any other breach of security to personal information,” said Andrew Kline, a lawyer who represents many ABRA licensees. “We should get word out there that this has happened. They should alert the licensees.”
ABRA shares office space with the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs at 941 North Capitol St. NE, and the hallway was accessible to employees of both agencies, plus unescorted cleaning staff. But because there was no routine public access to the hallway and the building has security out front, the inspector general did not suggest advising licensees of possible identity theft, said Austin Andersen, deputy inspector general.
“ABRA does not believe that it is necessary to send out a notice as ABRA is unaware that any sensitive information belonging to [alcoholic beverage control] licensees was accessed or taken by unauthorized personnel,” the agency said in a statement.
Maria Delaney, the agency’s director, said in a written response to the alert that all of the boxes found in the hallway were moved to a locked office, and steps are being taken to permanently secure confidential and sensitive information.
Inspectors also found that ABRA’s current office configuration forces its undercover investigators to work within steps of common areas, making it very difficult to protect their identities. But the agency, the inspector general learned through interviews, “is reluctant to spend funds to reconfigure its existing office space.”
ABRA is planning to relocate within a year, Delaney said.
