More Data Lost: 1.3 Million Student Loan Recipients
posted by Daniel Solove
From CNET:
About 1.3 million customers of a Texas provider of student loans are at risk of ID fraud, after a contractor lost computer equipment with sensitive information on them.
The equipment, which was not identified, contains the names and Social Security numbers of the borrowers, the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan company said in a statement Tuesday. The hardware was lost by an employee of Hummingbird, a enterprise software company hired to prepare a document management system, it said.
This follows a similar pattern to the way that the Veteran’s Administration lost 26 million records — some employee takes home the data and it promptly gets lost or stolen. Security tip: Don’t let your employees go home with the data! The government seems to be able to figure this out when it comes to top secret information; companies have figured it out when it comes to trade secrets. But when it comes to personal data belonging to others, it seems as though employees can just waltz out the door with it.
Hat tip: Deven Desai
June 3, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Posted in: Privacy (ID Theft)
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Responses (3)
Million Dollar Hosting - June 3, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Names and Social Security numbers – it does not appear so bad.
John Armstrong - June 3, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Million Dollar:
Names and SSNs are plenty to start an identity theft (though obviously I won’t go into details here).
Even if they weren’t, the story just says that the equipment contains that information, not that it contains only that information. Most likely there’s a lot more in each record, but giving a comprehensive list adds nothing to the story.
MFA Gordon - June 8, 2006 at 9:59 am
I think that is really upsetting because it makes me not want to pay with a credit card and if I can’t pay with a credit card there are a lot of things I won’t buy.
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