We’d all like to think we can trust our employers to protect our personal and financial information, but if New Orleans public school employees every believed it, they’ve had a rude awakening.
The massive warehouse used to store employee records was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, but apparently it contents have been ignored or forgotten since. Last week a local reporter found the gate to the warehouse yard standing open, the overhead door raised and any pretense of security absent. Within he found a mountain of personnel records.
There’s no way of knowing whether identity thieves have already helped themselves to the extensive records. Names, Social Security numbers, addresses, personnel actions, and salary information—they were all easily within reach of anybody who wanted them.
Stan Smith, CFO of the Orleans Parish school board said the school district didn’t know the records were still in the building or that the building had been left standing open.
“Id say that’s a lot of bull,” said Alton Simpson, a former school maintenance worker whose records were among those left unprotected. He says he told school board attorneys immediately after Katrina that the records were still within the devastated building.
“I think it’s criminal,” Simpson said. “I think it’s very foolish of them to handle our documents like that, our numbers, our lives.”
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Tags: Data breach, Identity Theft, LifeLock promotion code, New Orleans schools, Orleans Parish school
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