Dept. of Transportation Screws Floridians
An Inspector General with the Department of Transportation, who carries a gun as part of his job, neglected to secure his personal laptop that just so happened to contain the social security numbers of 133,000 residents of Florida.
What makes this worse is that the IG was in town to make sure that there were no terrorists registering to become pilots according to the letter that the Dept. of Transportation was sending out. So they collect all of the pilot information, and then promptly proceed to have it stolen by criminals. Sheesh. Incompetence.
From the WaPo here:
A laptop computer belonging to the federal Department of Transportation inspector general’s office was stolen last month, putting the sensitive personal information of nearly 133,000 Florida residents at risk, Acting Inspector General Todd J. Zinser said today.
The laptop, assigned to a special agent in the Miami office, was stolen from a government vehicle on July 27 in Doral, Fla., Zinser told Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) today in a letter obtained by The Washington Post.
The computer contains the names, Social Security numbers, birthdates and addresses of 42,792 Florida residents who hold a pilot’s license; 80,667 people in the Miami-Dade County area who hold commercial driver’s licenses; 9,496 people who took personal driver’s license tests or obtained their license from an examining facility near Tampa, the letter said.
“We regret this matter and take our responsibilities seriously,” Zinser wrote. “We have taken action and will continue to take steps necessary to prevent this from happening again.”
The department has posted information about the data breach, including a toll free number for the public to call, on its Web site. The theft is just the latest in a string of embarrassing data breaches reported by a wide variety of federal agencies.
Too bad about this laptop. If this could only happen at the end of next week, it would have its data encrypted per the new Federal Regulations. But I guess the Transportation Department was going to wait until the last minute. Sure, it was password protected, but that wouldnt stop disk copying software.
