Even though we do not normally think of children as becoming victims of identity theft, it is best to be on the cautious side when it comes to their protection. Many children have become victims of identity theft without knowing until they begin their adult life in the financial world.
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Well, it is all over the news. A pharmacy benefits management company, Express Scripts, has reported that they received an extortion letter that is threatening to expose patient records that number into the millions. The company is being required to pay a large sum of money to prevent this data breach from taking place. The letter is a great concern due to the fact that it did contain names, social security number, dates of birth and prescription information on several of their patients’ records. Express Scripts received this letter last month and has now seen fit to make the matter known to the public.
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Recent reports reflect that over 89,000 people who are associated with the Texas lottery (either as employees or as winners), have had their personal information taken from a state agency by a former employee. A computer analyst that once worked for the state commission for eight years, copied the data onto disks, without permission. The data copied includes social security numbers, names, addresses and amounts awarded.
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It has been reported that the US Department of State disclosed last week that close to 400 people who applied for passports, were affected by a data breach within their department. This breach occurred back in March and all affected have been offered one year of free credit monitoring. Letters of notification were mailed out back on July 10th and also on October 6th. About the same time of year, the department had revealed that contractors illegally gained access to the passport records of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, as well as others who have a high profile. A spokeswoman for the State Department, stated that a department employee was terminated for illegally accessing 383 records.
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Many colleges and universities nationwide have been found to have either leaked private information or had their computer hacked. Some have found to have this information leaked via the internet, such as the following incident:
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Have you ever felt that the mobile phone service carrier you use might be the source of your personal data being exposed one day? That is exactly what happened to millions of German customers of T-Mobile, some of whom were very prominent.
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The Charleston Gazette has reported that employees of the state of West Virginia are being contacted to be alerted that their personal information, including social security number, is stored on a laptop that has been stolen in early October. Over 400 employees with the state insurance commission and over 100 employees with the Bureau of Medical Services and Child Support Enforcement Division of the Department of Health and Human Resources are affected by this computer theft.
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Around 1,700 brokers for Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of Louisiana had their personal data exposed in late September. Around September 25th, an email that was being sent to brokers to make them aware of a software upgrade, ended up including their personal data as an attachment, in error. The data exposed included addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers. No customer data was included with this email and this email was not sent to customers. Only brokers are involved.
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The Chicago Tribune has recently reported that the University of Indianapolis has been attacked by a computer hacker. Someone was able to break into their computer system and gained access to the sensitive data of 11,000 people on file, including social security numbers. This includes faculty, students and staff.
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Here is another case of portable hard drives or portable discs being stolen that contained personal information. The Telegraph has reported that the Ministry of Defence has recently admitted to a theft of some portable discs that contained the personal information of possibly thousands of personnel who are currently serving and who are now no longer in service.
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