Claris Law Legal Blogging Community

Editor: Rob Robinson
Profession: Electronic Discovery Professional

Category: Compliance Audits & Investigations

Excellent article by Robert Ellis Smith of Forbes highlighting the current state of personal data security within corporate America. Enlightening and frightening.

When the history of personal privacy is written--and there are persons who monitor this sort of thing--they will call this "The Year of the Stolen Laptop."

The number of incidents has been astounding, topped by the theft of a laptop computer last May from the residence of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs staff person; the computer contained millions of names, birth dates and Social Security numbers. Law enforcement officers actually recovered the stolen laptop and arrested two suspects, and they have found no evidence that the data inside was used to compromise anybody's privacy.

But up to 26 million veterans and active-duty military personnel still experienced the stress of knowing that their information was available to persons who might have used it in adverse ways.

Each had to go through the Kafkaesque ritual of checking their credit reports, notifying banks and other businesses, sometimes consuming hours of personal time to get to the bottom of the matter. They learned that the greatest danger of being in a database that is lost or stolen is having your Social Security number vulnerable. With those nine digits, identity thieves can order products and services by misappropriating your credit report or, less likely, they can establish new identities for immigrants without documentation.

But institutions that are storing sensitive personal information on laptop computers apparently still are not motivated to take even the most basic precautions.

For the complete article by Robert Ellis Smith of Forbes.com, click here.