US LOSS OF CORPORATE COMPUTERS CREATING IDENTITY THEFT ISSUE Loss of Corporate Laptops (now Verizon) Continues to Expose Employees and Customers to Possible Identity Theft

Date Published: Friday, March 10th, 2006

Whether as a result of theft or carelessness, the loss of laptops belonging to corporations, financial institutions, data aggregators, schools or colleges, or other large organizations continues to be a subject of great concern in terms of potential identity theft or other illegal use of stored personal information belonging to clients, employees, customers, and students.

Hardly a week goes by without at least one report of a stolen or misplaced laptop containing sensitive personal information on anywhere from a few to hundreds of thousands of people.

The most recent theft of note involves two laptop computers that contained personal data on an undisclosed number of Verizon workers.
Verizon notified the people affected by letter on March 1. According to the letter, the laptops were stolen in an act of “random theft,” and the data was password-protected.

In an interview with ConsumerAffairs.Com, Verizon spokesperson Heather Wilner said that the computers were stolen from “a Verizon building,” but she was unable to provide further information because of “security reasons.”

The theft appears to have been a random act and so far there have been no reports that the information has been used for any improper purpose.

WEBBLOG Editor see full article included list of recent computer thefts at weblink...........