National Credit Union Administration board member J. Mark McWatters called on his agency Wednesday to “unambiguously” take responsibility for a lost flash drive of sensitive data that went missing during the federal examination of a California credit union. McWatters made the comments in an email sent to the Credit Union National Association.

The NCUA Tuesday confirmed a data breach caused by the loss of that flash drive containing member information during an examination of Palm Springs FCU.

After the NCUA released an official comment on the situation Wednesday from its executive director, Mark Treichel (see related story: NCUA issues statement on info breach involving FCU exam), McWatters contacted CUNA to make the following observations he said reflect his understanding of the facts as presented by NCUA staff.

McWatters said, “An officer of the Palm Springs Credit Union gave an NCUA examiner an unencrypted flash drive containing sensitive and confidential information. While in the possession of the NCUA examiner the flash drive went missing and has not been recovered.

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