Alex Lewis reports: Four laptops containing the personal details and signatures of more than 14,000 St Albans people have been stolen from the district counil, the Review can reveal. District council officials realised last week that a laptop containing the names, addresses and dates of birth of 14,673 people – everyone who applied for a…
Category: Government Sector
EFI victims’ bank account numbers released
Karen Velie reports: In the age of rampant identity theft, San Luis Obispo County officials, in a recent mailing to Estate Financial Inc. (EFI) victims, deliberately placed some investor bank account numbers on the outside of envelopes they mailed to the victims through their financial institutions. “My bank called me and said that they had…
Data breach could affect 60,000 GIs, civilians
Jim Tice reports: The Corps of Engineers is investigating the recent loss of an external hard drive that could pose identify theft problems for as many as 60,000 soldiers and Army civilians. Maj. Mark Young, a Corps of Engineers spokesman in Washington, said the security breach occurred in the command’s Southwestern Division, which is headquartered…
Bits ‘n Pieces
In the justice system: As an update to a story previously reported, John B. Spencer III, and Donald E. Stoner, both of Lancaster have pleaded guilty to an ID theft scheme that targeted DUI offenders in Pennsylvania by using information provided in their publicly available court records. A grand jury has indicted five men and…
Queensland Police email private details of traffic offenders
Anna Caldwell reports: An internal police intelligence document that detailed the private information of up to 12 traffic offenders already dealt with was leaked to as many as 50 people outside the Queensland Police Service. The document included the names, photographs, addresses, registration plates and criminal histories of the group. Police say it was “mistakenly”…
Ca: Computer theft suit bites feds for $751G
Peter Zimonjic sheds more light on the costs of a breach: The federal government paid out $751,750 to avoid a class action lawsuit after personal information was stolen from a Canada Revenue Agency office. The theft of six computers from the Tax Services Office in Laval, Que., on Sept. 4, 2003, jeopardized the personal information…