A former Random House employee leaked a letter sent by the company to Gawker earlier today, about how a consulting firm hired by Bertelsmann had exposed current and former staffers to the risk of identity theft. Apparently, the publishing conglomerate hired Towers Perrin back in 2003 and gave them access to all sorts of employee data, “including names, Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth and other information related to your employment” (according to the leaked correspondence). Flash forward three years, and a Towers employee allegedly walks off with one of the firm’s laptops…which just happens to have a good chunk of that data on it. The employee has been detained, but so far the computer remains unreturned.
Not to worry, though, says one Gawker commenter: “Any respectable laptop thief will immediately erase the hard drive, install a new operating system and sell it on eBay within a day or two.” If all those Social Security numbers are just so much clutter, chances are good you won’t suddenly have a new credit card or six.