More Government Laptops Missing

Census Bureau Claims Chances Of Personal Data Misuse Are Low

(CBS/AP) 
Rep. Michael R. Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House subcommittee on the census, said he plans to hold hearings on how the computers were lost and how to prevent losses in the future.

There is no evidence that any personal information from the Census Bureau's computers has been accessed or misused, said Ruth Cymber, the agency's director of communications. Publicly disclosing personal information from census surveys is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Census officials do not know how many people had their personal information on the lost or stolen computers, Cymber said. On average, a computer would contain information from 20 to 30 households at any given time.

Most personal information from census surveys would be insufficient to steal a person's identity, according to security experts. However, 81 of the lost computers may have contained Social Security numbers.

The departments of Defense, Treasury and Health and Human Service have yet to report their losses and some people on Capitol Hill are worried about why they seem to be stalling, reports Attkisson.

Among the Census Bureau computers containing personal information, 104 were stolen and 113 were not returned by former employees. The rest were lost or misplaced. Cymber said the bureau is working with state and local police to try to retrieve computers from former workers.

When possible, the Census Bureau has withheld pay from workers who did not return computers, Cymber said. Most of them were temporary hourly workers paid to gather data door to door.

Security analysts said it would take a computer expert to access a laptop protected by a password. One protected by encryption technology would be even more difficult to access.

"The casual thief likely won't know how to break them," said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and the chief privacy counselor for the Clinton administration.

In the meantime, census officials are concerned about losing the public's confidence. The Census Bureau conducts about 120 surveys a year, questioning more than 3 million households about everything from their race and ethnicity to their employment status and how many bathrooms they have in their homes. Most of the questions are mandated by law. The information is used by economists, government planners, marketing companies and academic researchers.

"We cannot do our work without public confidence," Cymber said.

Americans are required by law to answer questions from census takers. But census officials had to go back to 1962 to find a case of someone being prosecuted.

Gary Gordon, a Utica College professor and an expert on identity fraud, said the Census Bureau will have to repair its reputation if it wants Americans to continue answering questions voluntarily.

"People are learning that they need to protect their personal identifiers and trust is big issue," Gordon said.

For her part, Mazur was philosophical about the possibility that some computer thief might learn how much money she made last year.

"I feel like there's so many ways that we're vulnerable, what's one more laptop being lost by the government?" she said.

[riscy]

I keep hearing from local newspaper that Social Secuirty office being broken into and steal desktop PC or laptop which contains SSN database...well no wonder why they call it social!

It seem to me they performing identity thief rather than selling PC hardware, possibly making more money that way.

That is very scary

[sandy5274]

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Oh well so whats a few million dollars loss of
our tax money for lost or stolen US Government
Lap Top Computers to Big Spender George W Bush &
His Band Of Total Incompetent Axis Of Evil Bush
Weasels anyhow?

And so where is our Do Nothing Sec Of Homeland
Security Micheal Chertoff on this one? Or doesn't
President George W Bush have anyone in charge of
securing these computers or has the Republican
National Committee been selling them on E-bay
for TV Ads for Republican Candidates?

[siddin-2009]

Wow, apparently people in the government never tried to find out how easy it is to crack passwords and encryptions.... Its actually very easy and fast depending on the setup of your computer and how you program the decryption/password cracking program.

[ronnie100]

I pray that the missing computors are found and that nothing is missing. If someone has stolen them and they are not misplaced, then it is obvious that the information will be used for the wrong purpose or they would not have stolen them. My prayer is that they will be found before something drastic happens.
Thank You and God Bless
Ronnie D. Smith