Disk with Ohio Workers' Information Stolen from Employee's Car

A state worker had a disk stolen from his car last Sunday, according to the Associated Press. The disk contained social security numbers and other personal information of 64,000 employees of the state of Ohio. Gov. Ted Strickland reported this Friday.

According to Strickland, special equipment is needed to read the information. He feels there is no risk to privacy for the employees, according to the Associated Press.

Strickland said that he felt it was not a breach in security that caused the theft. He did state the employee is under investigation. The Associated Press reported that Gov. Strickland has issued an order that would change the policy on how private information is handled.

According to Brian Koerner, of About.com, there is a case of identity theft every 79 seconds. Due to stricter legislation, companies are required to report a breach as soon as it occurs, under certain circumstances. Koerner says this is the U.S.'s fastest growing crime.

Koerner lists 21 occurrences of data theft or loss in 2007 alone. Most are high risk. Some of these breaches occurred when laptops and computers were stolen. Money Gram data was accessed over the Internet. Bank account information was involved in that one.

In Georgia, voter registration cards were found in the trash, leaving 75,000 voters vulnerable. Over 2 million people were affected in the same state when Affiliated Computer Services lost a disk.

There is a website set up for Identity Theft Data. Trusted ID lists current security breaches as well as archived ones. According to their mission statement, they are "lobbying Congress to help our lawmakers understand that you, and only you, should determine who sees your personal information and who can gain access to it."

Trusted ID reports that 18-29 year olds are at the greatest risk of identity theft. They also said that 50% of the cases involve someone the victim knew.

Privacy Rights Clearing House, (PRCH) another consumer advocate, claims that over 155 million data records have been exposed because of security breaches since January 2005.