The US Treasury Department terminated its contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton due to data leakage risks

The US Treasury Department has announced the termination of all contracts with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. This was announced in Washington by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

According to the ministry, at the time of the decision, the Treasury had 31 contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton worth $4.8 million per year, with total obligations under these contracts reaching $21 million.

The minister noted that the decision was made as part of President Donald Trump's directive to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in government agencies. According to Bessent, the termination of contracts should be a step toward increasing public confidence in the government's work.

One of the key reasons for refusing the consulting company's services was that, according to the Treasury Department, Booz Allen Hamilton did not provide an adequate level of protection for confidential data, including sensitive taxpayer information, to which the company had access under contracts with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The Ministry of Finance recalled that between 2018 and 2020, Booz Allen Hamilton employee Charles Edward Littlejohn illegally accessed confidential tax returns and distributed the data of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers. The IRS estimates that the leak affected about 406,000 people. Littlejohn pleaded guilty to a criminal case involving the unauthorized disclosure of tax information.