RSSCitigroup Loses Data on 3.9 Million
By Nate Mook | Published June 7, 2005, 10:16 AM
Citigroup disclosed this week that a box with computer tapes containing personal data on 3.9 million U.S. customers was lost by UPS. The news is the latest in a string of data losses that open the door for identity theft.
Citigroup said the tapes stored Social Security numbers, account numbers and payment histories of both active and closed accounts at the company's CitiFinancial's branch network. CitiFinancial Auto and Mortgage customers were not affected by the loss.
CitiFinancial has begun sending letters to all of its 3.9 million customers informing them of the incident and offering a free month of credit monitoring. The company has also contacted the Secret Service and other law enforcement officials, but said risk of identity theft was low.
In a statement, CitiFinancial said it "had no reason to believe that this information has been used inappropriately, nor has it received any reports of unauthorized activity."
UPS took full responsibility for the loss, which occurred despite enhanced security measures implemented after Citigroup's Japanese bank lost data on 120,000 customers when boxes fell out of a truck during transport in February 2004.
"We sincerely regret that in this case we have not been able to find this package. We did conduct an exhaustive search," UPS said in a statement. The company promised it will make sure this doesn't happen again, but Citigroup is already planning to drop physical transport altogether.
In July, Citigroup will start transporting customer records electronically using encryption, rather than rely on third parties.
Citigroup isn't the only company affected by such a loss. Last month, Time Warner lost data on 600,000 employees when tapes were misplaced during transport to a backup facility. In December, Bank of America said personal information of 1.2 million federal employees went missing while in transport by a commercial airline.
The recent disclosures of personal data being leaked have raised fears of identity theft in the electronic age, and have brought calls for Congressional oversight of the way consumer information is handled.
This is BS!!! It shouldn't be possible for this to happen! You shouldn't be storing the records for any other reason than for the 7 year tax law and then you should learn from others and NOT ship them out. And never ship using UPS!!!
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|Is it just me, or isn't there an OBVIOUS solution to all these "lost tapes" and such -- just ENCRYPT the tape-contents completely with 128+bit modern encryption, and then if tapes turn up lost and in the wrong hands, the data will be useless. Why isn't this already the case?
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|they are encrypted but that dont make them completely secure from some people
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|pffft im so gettin a lot of money back now
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|that's why they call it a 'class action suit' and yes, UPS deserves to be made to pay for their incompetence. Over the past 5-10 years they've been damaging and losing packages at an alarming rate, and they've been delivering packages late by sometimes as much as a day or two. WHat many customers don't realize is that they are entitled to refunds for these late or lost packages. UPS and other shippers rely on this ignorance to keep the 4 billion or so annual dollars a secret so they will not have to pay it back.
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|Do could customers of Citigroup sue UPS/Citigroup for incompetence of exposing their private details to this kind of loss?
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|That'd be quite a few lawsuits, about 3.9 million of em. Heck sueing for $1 each would cost CitiGroup millions...
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|Surely is they want to store my personal details, then it's upto them to ensure those personal details are secure, so therefore the are certainly liable for losing them.
I say sue them... Class action lawsuit..
It would make companies think twice before storing data for the sake of data harvesting.
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|UPS took control of the property they are then liable for the information and so forth therefore citigroup would not be sued since they entrusted it to a legally recognized service provider. If they were sued it would inturn come from UPS not from citi... however if citigroup continued to use UPS then it would be considered neglegence on there part and they would be liable through indirect neglegence. Kind of the foul me once shame on you, foul me twice shame on me concept.
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|I work for a financial instituation, and there they too are readying personal information from loans and other data to be "scanned" and accessable via computer. They say it's safe and blah, blah, blah, but personally, I would think the customers should have the option of having their information displayed in such a process. We've recieved "tapes" of crutial information from aquired banks, etc. These I believe are shipped via a currier. But, I feel this too can be very hazmatic. I mean, it's not hard to "Oops" something. Unfortunately "Oops" just doesn't cover it for me.
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