Firm Loses Secrets Of 180,000 Clients

from the oops dept

A subsidiary of IBM Canada whose whole business is supposed to be "data management" is now telling people that a hard drive containing the personal information of many, many people has "gone missing". Police are treating it as a theft, and some are saying that the potential for using the data for identity theft could turn this into a huge problem. So far, one company and one government agency have admitted that their data (including customer name, address, date of birth, social insurance number, mother's maiden name, public servant pension statements, bulk fuel rebate applications, utility billings, doctor pay lists and physician service data) were on the hard drive - though, plenty of other companies apparently used it as well. This brings up the issue from earlier today about whether or not companies should be required to admit that this data has been compromised. It also points out that if all this data is out there - at some point is is going to get into the hands of people who shouldn't have it. Once again, all those useless tips that "experts" give you on how to prevent yourself from being a victim of identity theft would have been useless in this case.