The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
has lost data on around 100,000 employees.
The TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security and is
responsible for security at airports.
It discovered on 3 May that an external hard drive containing
personnel data - including names, social security numbers, dates of
birth, payroll information, financial allotments, and bank account
and routing information - was missing from a controlled area at its
Headquarters Office of Human Capital.
The TSA notified all employees of the breach on 4 May, telling
them, “TSA has no evidence that an unauthorised individual is using
your personal information, but we bring this incident to your
attention so that you can be alert to signs of any possible misuse
of your identity.”
The hard drive contained details on current and former employees
who worked for the TSA from January 2002 to August 2005. Data on
current TSA employees hired after August 2005, and on travellers,
was not included on the missing hard drive.
The TSA is providing those affected by the
data loss with free credit checks so they
can monitor their accounts.
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