The US Government has said that it will not publicly disclose federal records that could shed light on the security of its health care website because doing so could “potentially” allow hackers to break in.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied a request by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act amid concerns that Republicans raised about the security of the website, which had technical glitches that prevented millions of people from signing up for insurance under President Barack Obama’s health care law.
In denying access to the documents, including what’s known as a site security plan, Medicare told the AP that disclosing them could violate health-privacy laws because it might give hackers enough information to break into the service. “We concluded that releasing this information would potentially cause an unwarranted risk to consumers’ private information,” CMS spokesman Aaron Albright said in a statement.
