WASHINGTON — An internal State Department investigative report suggests that employees may have been snooping into the passport records of celebrities far more than previously disclosed, and it urges new steps to secure the files.
A report by the department’s inspector general that was to be released Thursday said a survey of the records of 150 notable politicians, athletes and entertainers found that 127 of them had been accessed, some of them multiple times. The report did not say whether they had been viewed for legitimate reasons.
“Although an 85 percent hit rate appears to be excessive, the department currently lacks criteria to determine whether this is actually an inordinately high rate,” it said.
Nonetheless, the report said investigators found numerous problems in the system that is supposed to protect the confidentiality of passport records.
The probe, looking at records accessed between September 2002 and March 2008, began earlier this year after it was discovered that the files of leading presidential candidates had been improperly viewed by contract workers.
The heavily redacted report does not name the people whose records were viewed.
