›Worker Loses a Laptop With Data on Thousands Who Filed Claims
MARCH 30, 2011 By DANIEL GILBERT
BP PLC said Tuesday that a company laptop containing personal information on thousands of people who filed claims related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been missing for about a month.
The laptop, which belonged to a BP employee, was lost on a business-related trip in early March, the oil company said. This week, it sent out letters to 13,000 people who had filed claims.
A spreadsheet used to track claims held names, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and Social Security numbers of claimants, according to BP, which has offered free credit-monitoring services to people it believes were affected.
"There is no evidence that the laptop or data was targeted, or that anyone's personal data has in fact been compromised or accessed in any way," a BP spokesman said, adding that the computer was password-protected. The company immediately contacted local law-enforcement authorities, but the spokesman would not elaborate or say where BP believes the laptop was lost.
BP paid about $400 million in claims to individuals and businesses before it transferred the handling of claims to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, administered by lawyer Kenneth Feinberg. The company said it has paid $5.2 billion in claims since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank last April.‹
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