HAWAII STOLEN COMPUTERS CAUSE CONCERN TO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TheHawaiiChannel - KITV 4 News - DOE Concerned Stolen Computers Hold Vital Personal InformationDOE Concerned Stolen Computers Hold Vital Personal Information
Officials Says Social Security Numbers Were In Hard Drives

POSTED: 5:51 pm HST June 1, 2005

HONOLULU -- Department of Education officials fear that burglars who stole some computers from DOE headquarters over the weekend may have personal information on school employees.

The department is trying to verify if the computers contained Social Security numbers and names of current and former school employees.

The thieves struck the Department of Education payroll offices on Sunday. They stole seven computers, including hard drives with personal information of school employees, officials said.

"What they took was brand new. So, what they looked for, you can tell right away when you look at it, the new ones are all black, designer black and the other ones were institutional gray," state Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto said.

The DOE is not sure how many of its 60,000 employees had their personal information in those payroll computers. Officials are recreating the stolen computer files to verify whose information was stolen. However, officials say names and Social Security numbers of employees and some retirees were in those hard drives.

"So that's what we're looking at, is how is the accuracy and the correctness of the information before we start moving on notifying people," Hamamoto said.

The department plans to begin notifying the affected employees as soon as Thursday. They plan to encourage those employees to place fraud alerts on their credit reports to stop thieves from opening new credit accounts in their name.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Credit Report Web Sites DOE Suggests:
Equifax.com 1-800-525-6285
Experian.com 1-888-397-3742
Transunion.com 1-800-680-7289
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The DOE said another department handles its paychecks so bank information was not stolen.

"We have verified that there are no bank deductions, no bank connections. There is no fiscal information or payroll information in any of those names," Hamamoto said.

Officials said basement windows used by the burglars did not have any alarms.

"So overall, we've increased the level of security around the building, ideally, to insure that this does not happen again," Hamamoto said.

As a result of the break-in, the department is installing more cameras and intrusion alarms