Texas Juvenile Justice Department Takes Action to Protect Youth Data with Accellion
Working with Accellion VAR, SolidBorder – an approved HUB vendor for Texas government and public education entities – the first step was to deploy the appliance and put it through rigorous testing.
Background
Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) is a state agency created to provide a cost-effective continuum of youth services that focus on keeping individuals within their home communities while balancing rehabilitative needs with public safety. Headquartered in Austin, TX, TJJD has 2,500 employees and operates dozens of treatment facilities, correctional institutions, and halfway houses throughout the state.
Challenges
Due to the nature of its operations, TJJD regularly handles highly confidential data relating to the youth that come in contact with the organization. New legislation, including Texas Family Code, Chapter 58, mandates that TJJD take the proper measures to maintain the integrity of all juvenile justice information, including any references to individuals within TJJD’s various facilities.
The organization originally had a dedicated TLS link to support confidential communications, but was met with a barrier on the recipients’ end, as most did not have a full-blown encryption solution that would sync with TJJD’s. This led staff members to mail hard copies of files, burn documents to CDs or encrypt emails individually – all very cumbersome procedures. The bottom line: TJJD didn’t have a good file transfer mechanism in place and needed a better option, quickly.
TJJD knew exactly what it wanted out of an enterprise file transfer solution: 1) a physical appliance – to maintain management control and minimize ongoing maintenance costs; 2) rock-solid security; and 3) ease of use. The organization looked at several vendors and Accellion was the only provider that offered an enterprise-class physical and virtual appliance, with significant, successful deployments in the government sector.
“95 percent of our data must be kept confidential for one reason or another, driving us to find a secure mode to exchange information with parents, between staff members, and with the community at large,” said Josh Kuntz, ISO with TJJD. “Accellion was the only solution that met our strict security guidelines, yet made it easy for non-technical individuals to use.”