Government officials improperly shared sensitive documents with thousands of federal workers, according to internal records reviewed by The Washington Post.
The records show that career employees at the General Services Administration inadvertently shared a Google Drive folder, which contained the sensitive documents, with the entire GSA staff of more than 11,200 people, according to the agency’s online directory.
The information shared also included the details of a proposed blast door for the visitor center at the White House.
The incident spurred a cybersecurity incident report and probe last week.
The GSA provides administrative and technological support for much of the federal bureaucracy and manages the real estate portfolio of the government.
The Google Drive incident is the latest digital security lapse that has taken place during the Trump administration, but the oversharing has been going on for at least four years. This suggests a pattern of sloppy handling of sensitive information that includes both the Trump and Biden administrations.
One longtime official at the GSA said the agency uses software that scans its Google Drives to detect files that are inappropriately shared and lock those down. In addition, GSA also holds yearly mandatory trainings for staff to teach them best practices for document sharing and privacy, said the employee.
“Internal controls are not perfect, but we aren’t just letting things happen without checking,” the employee said. “It’s not like we’re not trying to mitigate things if and when an employee makes a mistake.”
Michael Williams, a Syracuse University professor who studies international security and defense issues. said the breach indicates a general need to strengthen safety training measures for government workers who must live and work in a digital age, adding that the documents “are absolutely not something you want shared to 11,200 people.”
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