AP: 16,000 Social Security Numbers and Payroll Data At Risk On Stolen Government Laptop

The Associated Press is reporting that a laptop computer containing 16,000 social security numbers and payroll information of civilian employees for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) based in Fort Monroe, Virginia has been stolen.

My question for TRADOC is why was this data in the first place stored on a laptop computer?   Have the lessons the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs learned when a laptop containing the personal information including social security numbers of 26.5 million U.S. military veterans and their spouses been lost?  TRADOC and the U.S. Army, moreover the U.S. Department of Defense should never allow this type of information to be stored on laptop computers.

According to the AP news story, a letter was sent to the potentially affected employees informing them the U.S. Army is committed to preventing similar events from happening again.  The news story does not mention if TRADOC or the U.S. Army will be providing free credit monitoring for those affected.

Call to action: To the Acting Secretary of the United States Army, Mr. Pete Geren, please investigate this egregious data security breach and help institute policies and procedures to prevent this type information security breach from happening again.  Please consider offering free credit monitoring to those affected by this data security breach.

Beyond the identity theft risks facing those civilian employees for TRADOC, I'm also very concerned with the potential national security implications for the loss of this data.  What if a foreign terrorist group were to get a hold of the social security numbers and payroll data for civilian employees of the U.S. Army?  Would this stolen information be of use for foreign terrorists to be able to exploit the information to gain access or information from the U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Army?   Perhaps, U.S. Army leadership should look into this incident beyond the identity theft or financial fraud implications.

I hope this type of event does not happen again, however that may be just wishful thinking on my part.

AP - Govt. Laptop With Employee Data Stolen
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070327/stolen_laptop.html?.v=1&printer=1