Heather Crawford reports:
Former and current Pulaski County Special School District employees are being urged to keep a close eye on their financial accounts. A letter from the district went out Friday informing them their confidential records, including name and social security numbers, may have been compromised.
A district spokeswoman says a laptop containing the information was stolen from the home of a former employee a few weeks ago, but the district didn’t learn about the theft until November 30th.
Read more on KATV.
I wonder how much employee data is floating around on other employees’ personal computers or lost thumb drives.
The district’s response strikes me as somewhat inadequate and ineffective. Not only do they not seem to be offering credit protection or ID theft restoration services, but their strategy for reducing future problems seems incomplete:
The district says to safeguard the privacy of its employees it will reiterate to them that confidential data is not to be taken home or placed on personal computers for any reason.
Policies and employee training are important, of course, but they’re not generally sufficient. What if the district hires a dishonest employee? What will prevent them from downloading information to use for ID theft?