1.3 MILLION Tx Guarntted Loan Borrowers Personal Data "Lost" OOPSIE.

June 1, 2006, 6:24AM
Co. Loses Personal Data of 1.3M Customers


© 2006 The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas — Equipment containing the names and social security numbers of about 1.3 million Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. borrowers has disappeared, company officials said.

There was no evidence the information had been misused, but Texas Guarantee said it said it would notify the affected borrowers by mail starting this week.

"It was not a security breach where someone hacked into our system," said Sue McMillin, Texas Guaranteed's president and chief executive.

The piece of equipment, which the company did not identify, was lost May 24. Officials said encrypted electronic files containing the data were sent to Hummingbird Ltd., which helps companies manage large amounts of information. A Hummingbird employee downloaded, decrypted and stored the files on a piece of equipment that was later lost.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/3919501.html

:argh:

Maybe being a cab driver wouldn't be so bad. I do know the city pretty well.

This is no accident. Who is compiling all of this consumer and personal data? And why?

civil servants, credit card customers, medical patients, etc...?

We read about these 'accidents' and 'stolen data' incidents quite often lately. Hardly ever heard of this type of theft before the 2000 election selection.

fucking criminals.

I wonder if they did? I don't know who has my loan now. I've paid more than $5500 on a loan that was originally $4000 and they still say I owe over $2000. WTF?

So I guess I'll wait to hear if my info is gone too. They already got my veterans data last month.

This website is keeping track. Their current total: 83,114,945

A Chronology of Data Breaches
Reported Since the ChoicePoint Incident

The data breaches noted below have been reported because the personal information compromised includes data elements useful to identity thieves, such as Social Security numbers, account numbers, and driver's license numbers. A few breaches that do NOT expose such sensitive information have been included in order to underscore the variety and frequency of data breaches. However, we have not included the number of individuals affected in such breaches in the total because we want this compilation to reflect breaches that expose individuals to identity theft as well as breaches that qualify for disclosure under state laws.
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm

"Suggest" to them that there juuuuust might be a story here.

nt