On October 18, the Department of Administrative Services mistakenly sent an unredacted spreadsheet that contained employee vaccination status information to The Oregonian and The Statesman Journal. Information privacy was a big concern that we heard from members, which is why we negotiated language about privacy into our agreement with the State. This action was a clear violation of that agreement and a breach of trust at the worst possible time. We are planning to file a grievance over this and will explore possible avenues for other legal recourse.

Importantly, both media outlets have agreed not to publish individually identifiable information. The Statesman Journal opted to delete the information outright.

This is the latest example of the State mishandling sensitive private information. It raises many important questions. Most importantly, what will the State do to ensure this doesn’t happen again?