infoTECH News

[November 03, 2009]

EDITORIAL: Laptop theft reveals chain of tax blunders: Review finds a costly failure to protect state taxpayers' confidentiality.

Nov 03, 2009 (New Haven Register - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Review finds a costly failure to protect state taxpayers' confidentiality.

The state Department of Revenue Services' blunders were even worse than originally reported when a laptop containing the Social Security numbers of 106,000 Connecticut taxpayers was stolen in 2007.

Jason Purslow -- a tax official the department refused to identify at the time -- had taken the laptop on a family trip to a hockey tournament on Long Island, where it was stolen from his car.

That was only the start of a chain of blunders in how the tax department handled taxpayer information, according to a recent report by the state attorney general and the state auditors. Purslow should not have taken the laptop from his office. The Social Security numbers on the laptop were not protected by encryption.

After the theft was reported, it took the Department of Revenue Services five days to realize that the data on it exposed taxpayers to identity theft and "possible plundering of personal assets," according to Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general.

Even then, the department lagged. The theft was not made public for 11 days.

As part of their review of lapses in the security of tax records, Blumenthal and the auditors found that any Department of Revenue Services employee with computer network access could not only read taxpayer records, but make alterations in them. There was no reliable way of tracing who accessed the records. This breakdown in taxpayer confidentially was potentially far more serious than the theft of the laptop.

So far, the theft of the laptop has cost the state more than $1 million to provide identity theft protection to taxpayers and for new measures to increase the security and confidentiality of tax records.

Purslow -- who should have been fired -- was suspended for 30 days.

The stolen laptop has never been found.

No thanks to the state's efforts, so far there have been no reports of identity theft connected to information on the laptop, according to the attorney general and auditors' report.

To see more of New Haven Register, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nhregister.com. Copyright (c) 2009, New Haven Register, Conn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

[ InfoTech Spotlight's Homepage ]

blog comments powered by Disqus

FOLLOW US

Subscribe to InfoTECH Spotlight eNews

InfoTECH Spotlight eNews delivers the latest news impacting technology in the IT industry each week. Sign up to receive FREE breaking news today!
FREE eNewsletter