Data-sharing board pushed for Department of Homeland Security

A Homeland Security Department privacy panel Thursday urged the agency to strengthen information-sharing policies by creating an internal board to manage and oversee how data is used, stored and shared across the intelligence community.

A draft report released at a meeting of the DHS Privacy and Data Integrity Advisory Committee also would require a threshold analysis whenever the agency receives data-sharing request and would require officials to prepare, document, and apply auditing standards and protocols to measure compliance with information-sharing rules.

The report, which must be approved by the privacy committee before being transmitted to DHS management, coincided with news reports that the DHS network for sharing sensitive but unclassified data with state and local authorities was hacked in March and again in April.