The Office of Personnel Management announced Wednesday that 5.6 million people are now estimated to have had their fingerprint data stolen in a massive security breach earlier this year – five times more than it stated earlier.”Of the 21.5 million individuals whose Social Security Numbers and other sensitive information were impacted by the breach, the subset of individuals whose fingerprints have been stolen has increased from a total of approximately 1.1 million to approximately 5.6 million,” the OPM admitted on Wednesday.The agency said the opportunities to abuse the captured data are currently “limited,” but warned this “could change over time as technology evolves.””If, in the future, new means are developed to misuse the fingerprint data, the government will provide additional information to individuals whose fingerprints may have been stolen in this breach,” the OPM said.The data was taken from people who had undergone background checks for security clearances. The total number included some 19.7 million who applied for the clearances for federal roles, plus 1.8 million non-applicants, mostly spouses or co-habitants of applicants, the agency said.According to a procedural document from 2013: “Fingerprints are submitted to OPM's Fingerprint Transaction System (FTS) electronically via an FBI approved live-Scan System or Fingerprint Card Scan System that utilizes OPM-approved software.Currently, OPMonly accepts Type-4 fingerprint images for electronic submission.” However, OPM also receives hardcopy fingerprints and scans the fingerprints to an Electronic Fingerprint Transmission Specification (EFTS) file to forward to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
OPM reveals that 5.6m fingerprints stolen in hack
