Theft of government laptop in Doral puts 133,000 Florida residents at risk
Federal agent's computer held data on licensed pilots and drivers.
By Marcia Heroux Pounds
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted August 10 2006
A laptop computer used by the Department of Transportation to combat fraud was stolen in Doral last month, putting the sensitive personal information of almost 133,000 Florida residents at risk of the criminal activity the agency was trying to guard against.
Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses were on the laptop assigned to a special agent in the Miami office when it was stolen from a government-owned vehicle on July 27, acting Inspector General Todd Zinser wrote Gov. Bush in a letter on Wednesday.
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At risk are about 43,000 Florida residents who hold pilot's licenses; about 81,000 people in the Miami-Dade County area with commercial driver's licenses; and about 9,000 people in the Tampa area.
The missing laptop, which by late Wednesday had not been recovered, is the latest in a string of government agency laptops stolen in recent months, including incidents at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Trade Commission.
The incident is being reported, as required, to the Department of Homeland Security.
"There is probably a Department of Homeland Security implication, but not a direct or evident connection at this point," Zinser said in a conference call with reporters.
The personal information of licensed pilots and commercial drivers was being used by the Miami DOT office as part of multi-agency task forces focused on the use of fraudulent information to obtain such licenses, according to the letter.
"Past reviews have identified people ineligible to hold these certificates and licenses due to disqualifying criminal histories or the use of fraudulent Social Security numbers," Zinser wrote.
The theft was not reported to Zinser for four days, on July 31, and he didn't know there were databases on the laptop until Aug. 5. The databases were not lists of individuals under investigation, but general lists of license and pilot certificate holders, the DOT said.
The DOT is offering a reward of $10,000 for information leading to the recovery of the laptop, possibly stolen from the agent's SUV parked at a Doral restaurant while the agent ate lunch. The car's passenger-side lock was tampered with, Zinser said.
Miami-Dade police are investigating, and the FBI is "in contact" with the DOT and Inspector General's Office about the theft. The FBI would not investigate unless there were evidence of fraudulent or criminal use of the information, spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said.
"At this point, it doesn't look like it has been compromised," she said.
The laptop was protected by a password, though it was not encrypted because the DOT was completing a computer upgrade, Zinser said.
Some experts say a password is not enough.
"They [laptops] should be encrypted," said Sherwin Siy, staff counsel at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. People handling sensitive information "should ask themselves whether they need to store the information on a laptop to begin with and whether the laptop needs to leave the office."
Siy's rule of thumb: "If you can't protect it, don't collect it."
Other security specialists question why critical information was on a laptop in the field.
"What would cause people to allow these huge databases to be carried around by subcontractors and by employees?" said Thomas Cash, executive managing director of the Miami-based Latin American & Caribbean division of Kroll, a risk-consulting firm. "Has anybody heard of Homeland Security?"
Chris Dancy, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the biggest trade organization representing general aviation, said the group already is receiving concerned calls from its members, which includes 31,000 pilots in Florida.
One of the biggest problems, he said, is that many pilot's licenses were either issued under a pilot's Social Security number, or includes the number as part of the FAA's personal information.
"This obviously raises concerns about the potential for identify theft for literally tens of thousands of our members in Florida," he said "We've begun receiving calls already, asking specifically what information was on that computer. We don't have answers yet."
Dancy said the association had sent e-mails to Florida pilots, recommending they put fraud alerts on their credit reports.
Gary Hellman, of Davie, a former Air Force pilot who flew fighter jets in Vietnam and now flies a single-engine Mooney out of North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines, said he is worried because this isn't the first time a government laptop containing sensitive information has been stolen.
"What concerns me more than anything is the apparent lack of security with this sensitive data," he said. "It seems to be happening more often, so who knows how much exposure we get that we don't know about."
Staff Writers Ian Katz and Ken Kaye contributed to this report. Marcia Heroux Pounds can be reached at mpounds@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6650.
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