One of the reasons the risk of ID theft is so high has to do with your employer. You don’t have any idea what happens to your personal information after you provide it to an employer. Unless, that is, you work for the staffing agency CLP. If so, there’s a good chance your personal information was in one of the boxes found in a Dumpster out back of a Florida restaurant last week.

A worker at Newport Café discovered everything necessary to commit identity theft in the boxes full of job applications, copies of Social Security cards, driver’s licenses and tax records. The job applications bore the CLP logo.

The restaurant employee contacted the local police, who, in turn, contacted staffing firm’s regional director in Fort Lauderdale. The CLP regional director, Seth Sandler, made a quick trip up to Palm Beach County and “took care of the situation,” said Corp. Michelle Vazquez of the Palm Springs police.

Until last week, CLP had an office next door to the restaurant, but Newport Café employees said they saw people moving out the office furnishings the day before the documents were discovered.

Sandler said the company now has the documents back in their possession, and they’ll be disposed of properly.

There isn’t any evidence yet that anyone might have taken advantage of the situation by stealing documents to commit ID theft, nor did Sandler make any comments about providing ID theft protection services to the data breach victims.

There is no word, however, about the type of vehicle Sandler drove, an important consideration given the magnitude of the data breach. There were “enough boxes to fill the back of a pick-up truck,” according to Capt. Mark Hall of the Palm Springs police.

So far, no criminal charges have been pressed against the company, but police are still investigating. The sticking point seems to be whether there was any “intent” to place the applicants and employees at risk of identity theft, or whether the person who discarded the thousands of records was just a moron.

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