GAP Inc. (NYSE: GPS): 800,000 Job Applicants At Risk for Identity (ID) Theft

Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) has announced that a laptop containing the information on 800,000 job applicants was stolen from a third-party vendor contracted to manage the information for job applicants.  (See: Gap Inc. - http://www.gapinc.com/public/Media/Press_Releases/med_pr_092807announcement.shtml)

What is corporate America thinking? Why was the personal information for 800,000 job applicants stored locally on the hard drive of one laptop in the first place? 

Personal and confidential business information should not be stored on laptop computers unless you apply strong protection for that information.  Encryption of data at the file system level is only one method of protecting confidential information that may be stored on a laptop computer. 

Gap Inc. did however require their third party vendor to implement encryption on their computer systems.  There is a mile of difference between creating contractual requirements and taking audit steps to verify that those requirements are being enforced.

If you applied for work at Gap, Old Navy, or at Banana Republic stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada, between July 2006 and June 2007, you are encouraged to contact the Gap Inc. 24 hour Security Assistance Helpline at 1-866-237-4007. (See: www.gapsecurityassistance.com)