Puppy mill raid
Arnold convicted of killing baby
McCain's visit to Miami Valley
Stolen state tape: More personal info than thought
Saturday, June 16, 2007
COLUMBUS — After learning that additional personal information might be on a stolen state backup computer tape, Gov. Ted Strickland late Friday called for the State Inspector General to investigate the circumstances surrounding the theft and the state's response to it.
"...We have determined that information pertaining to participants in the state's pharmacy benefits management program, including information such as names, Social Security numbers, addresses and phone numbers of employees and the names and Social Security numbers of their dependents, may be contained in the device," Strickland said in a press release.
Extras
Ron Sylvester, spokesman for the Department of Administrative Services, said on Saturday that a preliminary analysis indicated that more than 50,000 employees and about 75,000 dependents could be affected.
Other files with sensitive information may also be on the tape, Sylvester said.
"We've got a lot of folks working on it around the clock. As soon as information is confirmed, we'll update throughout the weekend," said Keith Dailey, Strickland's spokesman.
Strickland added that while it would be difficult for a thief to access the information that it is important that those whose information might be at risk be informed immediately so they could take precautions to protect themselves from identity theft.
He urged state employees to visit the State Employee Identity Protection Web site: http://ohio.gov/idprotect to learn how to sign up for free identity theft protection services.
Earlier Friday Strickland revealed that the computer backup tape was stolen from the car of a 22-year-old part-time intern state employee when he left it in his car overnight in the parking lot of his suburban Hilliard apartment complex. The tape included the names and Social Security numbers of all 64,467 state employees.
Jared A. Ilovar, a student at DeVry University in Columbus, discovered the tape was missing Monday morning and reported the theft to police. The Ohio Highway Patrol was not called into investigate until Thursday after state officials determined that the names and Social Security numbers were on the tape.
Strickland issued an executive order to change the policy that permitted the intern to be one of the state employees permitted to take the data home as the person in charge of the backup tape.
