By Timothy Dwyer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 19, 2006

Letters will be mailed out today to about 13,000 District workers and retirees whose personal data -- including Social Security numbers -- were contained in a laptop stolen during a burglary a week ago at the Southeast Washington home of an ING U.S. Financial Services agent.

While final preparations were being made yesterday to ship the letters warning the 13,000 people of the possibility that the stolen information could lead to identity theft, an ING spokesman said a new policy was put into effect to increase security on company laptops. The stolen laptop was not protected by a password or encryption.

"We are aggressively moving forward with a comprehensive confirmation process that all of our laptops meet our encryption and password protection policy requirements," said Caroline Campbell, an ING spokeswoman. "In addition, we have implemented an immediate policy to restrict any laptop from being exposed to the public domain until properly protected."

For privacy reasons, Campbell declined to identify the agent whose laptop was stolen. She said that the agent was out of town for the weekend and that when he returned, he found several things missing.

D.C. Police Sgt. Joe Gentile said the theft was under investigation. "Apparently they were doing some work on the house and the person doing the work first reported to us that between 6 p.m. on June 10 and 2 p.m. on June 11, an air compressor and nail gun were stolen."

Gentile said that when the resident returned early June 12, he found a game station, his company laptop, "nine cans of beer and two jars of change" also missing. He said the victim lived in the 6th Police District.

Campbell said that the ING retirement plan was voluntary for District employees and that the 13,000 names in the laptop included all employees and retirees currently enrolled with ING. Maryann Young, a spokesman for the city's chief financial officer, said the ING plan was just one of several available to District workers and retirees.

Social Security numbers can be used by thieves to open lines of credit in victims' names. More than 85 million U.S. consumers have been told their personal or financial information may have been compromised in the past 15 months because of data breaches, disgruntled employees or incompetence.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reported that a stolen laptop and hard drive taken from an employee's home in Montgomery County contained personal information on 25.5 million veterans and military personnel.

In the letters being mailed to District employees and retirees today, ING will offer to set up and pay for a year of credit monitoring and identity fraud protection.