The report on the embassy’s operations was conducted between January and March.
Advertisement
“Senior embassy staff, including the ambassador, used personal email accounts to send and receive messages containing official business”, investigators wrote in the report, released Tuesday.
US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy used her personal email for official business despite a State Department policy advising employees generally to avoid this, an internal audit released on Tuesday said.
Other senior embassy staff also used personal email accounts to handle government communications, occasionally transmitting information marked “sensitive but unclassified” on commercial accounts, the report found.
“Such risks include data loss, hacking, phishing, and spoofing of email accounts, as well as inadequate protections for personally identifiable information”, the report says.
“It is not prohibited to use private email”.
Embassy officials also mismanaged travel costs and had hired more staff than were actually needed, the inspector general reported. “Employees are also expected to use approved, secure methods to transmit Sensitive but Unclassified information when available and practical”.
The report appeared as Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton faces heavy scrutiny for using a personal email server for official business during her four years as top US diplomat. Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, has served as ambassador in Tokyo since November 2013.
State Department spokesman John Kirby downplayed the “sensitive information” part at a daily press briefing, and told reporters that “the inspection report annotated that that was a potential issue”, adding “the mission in Japan is implementing all the recommendations, including the recommendations with respect to email traffic as we speak”. The review is ongoing.
Advertisement
But she has come under intense criticism for potentially exposing official business to hackers and allegations that the 30,000 or so mails that she reportedly had wiped from the server could contain compromising material. But it notes that demands for her participation in events across Japan have put strains on the embassy’s resources.
