Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Incident: Stolen Berkeley Laptop Exposes Data of 100,000

Yet another university to add to the incident file. Someone walked off with a University of California Berkeley laptop containing personal information related to almost 100K students, alumni, applicants, etc. Thanks to the California privacy law, the University is required to inform each affected individual.

Stolen Laptop Exposes Data of 100,000:

"A thief recently walked into a University of California, Berkeley office and swiped a computer laptop containing personal information about nearly 100,000 alumni, graduate students and past applicants, highlighting a continued lack of security that has increased society's vulnerability to identity theft.

University officials waited until Monday to announce the March 11 crime, hoping that police would be able to catch the thief and reclaim the computer. When that didn't happen, the school publicized the theft to comply with a state law requiring consumers be notified whenever their Social Security numbers or other sensitive information have been breached...."

See also Yahoo! News - Stolen Laptop Exposes Data of 100,000, ABC News: Stolen Laptop Exposes Data of 100,000 and The New York Times > National > Thief Takes Laptop With Berkeley Data.

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