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A top House Republican wants the Pennsylvania attorney general to investigate the massive data loss affecting the state police and state employees’ pension system.
State Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, said he asked State Attorney General Michelle Henry to review the recent IT failure that led to the loss early last month of thousands of records from the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) and State Employee Retirement System (SERS).
“The deleted files from the PSP contained criminal evidence which may never be recovered,” said Grove, who is the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. “The loss of these files could negatively affect the investigation and prosecution of many criminal cases.”
Grove said while Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration has blamed it on “human error,” he wants to make sure there is no connection between an employee and the deleted criminal evidence files.
The administration confirmed one employee in the governor’s Office of Information Technology was fired as a result.
Some police data has been recovered. But Colette Smith, the director of state police’s Bureau of Forensic Services that operates seven crime labs, notified law enforcement on Jan. 22 tha t some deleted data “will no longer be accessible,” according to Spotlight PA.
PSERS officials said the affected employee data was on a secondary system and that no pension data has been lost.
The Shapiro administration earlier this week hired a private firm on a 30-day contract at a cost of more than $500,000 to bolster the state’s information technology control and recovery in the wake of the failure.
Grove said he also wants Henry to release a list of best practices from her investigation to prevent future losses.
Grove said he and Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York, have introduced companion bills in the House and Senate to establish better IT governance and standards to ensure state data is protected.
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