BP loses laptop with Gulf residents' claims data

NEW ORLEANS - A BP employee lost a laptop containing personal data belonging to thousands of Louisiana residents who filed claims for compensation after the Gulf oil spill, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

BP spokesman Curtis Thomas said the oil giant on Monday mailed out letters to roughly 13,000 people whose data was stored on the computer, notifying them about the potential data security breach and offering to pay for their credit to be monitored. The company also reported the missing laptop to law enforcement, he said.

The laptop was password-protected, but the information was not encrypted, Thomas said.

The data included a spreadsheet of claimants' names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses. But Thomas said the company doesn't have any evidence that claimants' personal information has been misused.

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"We're committed to the people of the Gulf Coast states affected by the Deepwater Horizon accident and spill, and we deeply regret that this occurred," he said.

The data belonged to individuals who filed claims with BP before the Gulf Coast Claims Facility took over the processing of claims in August. BP paid roughly $400 million in claims before the switch. As of Tuesday, the GCCF had paid roughly $3.6 billion to 172,539 claimants.

Thomas said no one will have to resubmit a claim because of the lost data.

The employee lost the laptop on March 1 during "routine business travel," said Thomas, who declined to elaborate on the circumstances.

"If it was stolen, we think it was a crime of opportunity, but it was initially lost," Thomas said.

BP is offering to pay for claimants to have their credit monitored by Equifax, an Atlanta-based credit bureau.

Asked why nearly a month elapsed before BP notified residents about the missing laptop, Thomas said, "We were doing our due diligence and investigating."

Matt O'Brien, part owner of Tiger Pass Seafood, a shrimp dock in Venice, La., said he had filed a claim with BP before the GCCF took over processing claims in August. A call from an AP reporter on Tuesday was the first he had heard that his personal information may have been among the data compromised.

"That's like it's par for the course for them," O'Brien said of BP. "They can't seem to do nothing right."

Beau Weber, a fishing guide in Lafitte, La., also had filed a claim with BP prior to Aug. 23, and he had even received several monthly payments from BP. He said he hadn't received a letter from BP about the missing laptop.

"It's terrible," he said of the breach. "I kinda work hard for the things I have. I wouldn't want somebody with a computer to be able to take it from me. It's very disturbing. It's like another gallon of gas thrown on the fire."

[bobbyboobee]

Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee.....I'm sorry, I just can't stop laughing......it's just....so.....appropriate and fitting. Now who could have seen THAT coming? Hee hee hee hee hee hee......

[AlFranken]

It must be nice to be so big and important that you can be immune to any sort of accountability.

[slatep]

How convenient for BP.!!

[Falconreef]

How very sneaky of BP.!!!
So now that BP executives are likely to be indicted on manslaughter charges, a BP employee (allegedly) loses a laptop containing people's most important personal information....Hummm...so in a few weeks time when 13000 claimants have their personal information shared amongst every organization in the world , may find themselves unable to raise mortgages, bank loans or be accepted for that important job because somehow someone screwed around with their personal info.
Next step is for 13000 potentially desperate claimants, to accept much smaller settlement offer from BP....
BP executives should all be indicted for not only the Gulf disaster but also willfully distributing public sensitive information.

[j40405]

And so our fine electronic paperless society everyone wanted will be the downfall of many innocent lives for decades

[andacar]

Have you ever noticed it's usually big corporations that are exhorting us all to "go paperless?" And how everybody unquestioningly believes that paperless is somehow more "green?"

[MyTwoCents2011]

oops.

[darwufche]

Right. They likely threw it away.

[wrath_of_grunge]

it pretty obviously says that they have copies of the data. it's not like the ONLY copy of those people's information was lost. it also quite obviously says that the data was encrypted.

no encryption is perfect, but chances are whoever had the lappy ended up formatting it to get a working laptop out of it. otherwise there's probably a pass to log in to the os. chances are that those people are totally safe and possibly even made safer by BP taking a month to announce that the data had been stolen.

had BP announced something like that immediately then whoever was in possession of the laptop, with knowledge of where it came from, could assume that it held personal data. then it would be worth spending the time to get into the system and retrieve the data.

whoever ended up with the damned thing probably formatted it, in order to use it, and the personal data is likely safe.

[skeezix06]

Aka: The dog ate my homework.

[flexsf]

Fork over the money, BP. You continue to make your problems the problems of everyone.