WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) -- A majority of U.S. government IT professionals believe national security trumps personal privacy, a new survey says.
The online survey was conducted by Pursuant, a Washington-based public opinion research firm for Quest Software, which released it Monday. Just over 470 officials from federal civilian, defense, and state and local government departments or agencies took part, ranging in seniority from network administrators up to senior executives.
The Identity Management Government Survey conducted in January found that 53 percent agreed with the statement, "National security should be the priority even if it means that Americans' personal privacy could be negatively impacted."
The survey also found that only 35 percent, just over one third, of government IT professionals believed that their department or agency would, in the next two years, be able to meet new identity management standards like the issuance of new interoperable ID cards for federal employees. Slightly more, 37 percent, reported that they "don't know" when their department will be compliant with the new rules.
"This may reflect on the challenges inherent in the complexity of the requirements and the difficulty experienced by respondents in juggling ongoing and unfunded (identity management) efforts with existing priorities," the survey said.
Over half of all respondents (56 percent) said they had either personally seen or heard firsthand about someone violating security policy or protocols at their agency.
