From veterans to tax payers, contractors to military personnel, the U.S. government is one of the world’s largest harbors of personally identifiable information (PII). Year after year of security breaches has done nothing but destroy public trust in the government’s ability to protect PII about citizens, employees, and contractors.

As government officials begin investigation of the Equifax breach that exposed the sensitive information of 143 million people, what does the breach mean for agencies themselves? After all, the U.S. government stores far more sensitive data than the private sector, and often stores it on older, more vulnerable systems.

As the federal government continues to navigate the transition of the new administration, the imperative is on new political appointees to understand and adhere to records management rules and regulations while safeguarding classified and other personally identifiable information (PII). All this, of course, against the backdrop of exponential records growth, budgetary challenges, and other mission pressures.

Data breaches are an unfortunate fact of life for government agencies – Edward Snowden being the most infamous case. And although agencies have taken steps to protect themselves, the growing number of breaches continues to frustrate IT and legislators alike.