Airline loses IRS personnel laptop
(UPI Top Stories Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has confirmed an employee’s laptop computer containing personnel information was lost on a commercial flight.
Agency spokesman Terry Lemons said an unidentified employee was flying to a job fair last month and checked the laptop as luggage on an unidentified airline.
The computer contained personal information on 291 IRS workers and job applicants and was not encrypted, the Washington Post reported. However, Lemons said the data was protected by a two-level password system.
The computer was never seen again, and the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration is investigating, Lemons said.
The data included names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and fingerprints of the employees and applicants, but no tax information.
Last month, a thief stole a laptop and external hard drive from an employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs containing personal information of 26.5 million veterans and active-duty military members.
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