Chase Dumps 2.6M Customers In Landfill
http://www.securitypronews.com/news/...nLandfill.html
Although it is not definite, Chase believes lost backup tapes of current and former Circuit City credit cardholder information have ended up in a landfill somewhere.
A quintet of backup tapes were disposed of by personnel at Chase Card Services, which issued credit cards on behalf of electronics retailer Circuit City. The unintentional trashing of those data tapes placed the personally identifiable information of around 2.6 million cardholders at risk.
Chase posted a statement about the missing tapes, and emphasized their belief that there has been no misuse of personal information as a result of their error:
Working closely with federal and local law enforcement, Chase conducted a thorough investigation and believes that the tapes, contained within a locked box, were compacted, destroyed and are buried in a landfill where the trash was taken.
"We deeply regret that this has occurred and apologize to those impacted," said Rich Srednicki, chief executive officer of Chase Card Services, which issues co-branded and private-label credit cards for Circuit City. "We have found no evidence that the tapes or their contents have been accessed or misused. The privacy of our customers' personal information is of utmost importance to us, and we take the responsibility to safeguard this information very seriously."
"We take responsibility for this and are making every effort to let affected cardmembers know what we are doing and what we suggest they do to protect themselves," added Srednicki.
Chase began sending out notification letters to affected customers this week. They are offering one year of credit card monitoring at no charge to customers whose Social Security number was on the missing tapes.
Jag
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