Posted on Tue, Jun. 13, 2006

Three laptops with sensitive data missing from auditor's office
Associated Press

ST. PAUL - Three computers that contain private data on municipal employees and some recipients of government aid have been reported stolen from the office of State Auditor Patricia Anderson.

"We have no reason to believe the computers were stolen for their data," Deputy Auditor Tony Sutton said Tuesday. "We believe the were stolen for their value as computers."

"We do take it seriously," he added.

Information on the three laptop computers could be tapped by identity thieves only by hacking into a password-protected program, Sutton said.

While St. Paul police investigate, staff in the auditor's office worked to assess the stolen information. The private data includes Social Security numbers, dates of birth, tax-withholding payments and information on recipients of housing aid.

Rebecca Otto, the DFL-endorsed candidate for auditor who will face Anderson in the fall election, criticized the oversight in the auditor's office. "Identity theft is a really important issue," she said. "We hope the government has the ability to keep information out of the wrong hands."

The counties with employee or resident information on the computers are Anoka, Benton, Cass, Douglas, Kanabec, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Polk, Sherburne and Stearns.

Other affected government entities are the city of Isle, the city of St. Cloud, the Metropolitan Council, the Minneapolis Public Housing office, Rockville Township and the Stearns-Benton Employment and Training Council.

In all, the auditor's office said 493 Social Security numbers were on the computers as was 1,918 instances of private financial data.

Sutton said people whose information was on the computers will receive letters notifying them of the apparent theft.

The state auditor collects the information as part of the office's charge of overseeing local government finances.

The computers were reported stolen last Thursday from a locked fourth-floor office suite near the Capitol. Only 30 members of Anderson's staff and building employees had access to the area where the laptops were kept, Sutton said.

No suspects have been indentified, but St. Paul police are trying to track the computers via their serial numbers.

The incident comes on the heels of a high-profile theft of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs computer from an employee's home in Aspen Hill, Md. That computer contained sensitive data on millions of veterans and active-duty military personnel.