Two computers containing personal information on Motorola employees were stolen from the mobile phone maker's human resources services provider, Affiliated Computer Services, the latest in a series of incidents of companies losing control of employee data.
The data on the stolen computers included names and Social Security numbers but no financial information, according to Motorola. The number of employees affected was not disclosed.
"All employees were notified, but to this date there is no indication that any personal information has been compromised," said ACS' chief marketing officer, Lesley Pool. "It is clear that it was just an amateur burglary."
ACS said thieves broke into its office in the Chicago area during the May 38-30 Memorial Day weekend and stole the computers. Police are investigating, it said.
Motorola agreed to transfer part of its human resources systems to ACS in December 2002 under a 10-year contract valued at $650 million.
Motorola said it had emailed all of its US employees alerting them to the incident. No personal financial data was in the computers, said Motorola spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch.
She also said the computers had strong security safeguards that made it difficult to access the information.
Employees affected by the theft are mostly in the United States, home to about half of Motorola's global work force of some 68,000, Weyrauch said.
The company offered affected employees fraud insurance coverage at no charge, she said. She would not comment on whether the break-in would affect the company's relationship with ACS.
"Right now, we're in the process of finding out how this happened," Weyrauch said. "We're working with the third party provider and the local authorities."
The theft follows a spate of breaches of customer and employee data in the United States. On Monday Citigroup said computer tapes containing account data on 3.9 million customers, including Social Security numbers, were lost by United Parcel Service.
MCI last month lost a laptop that stores Social Security numbers of 16,500 current and former employees. Iron Mountain, an outside data manager for Time Warner, also lost tapes holding information on 600,000 current and former Time Warner workers.
Other companies that have had similar problems include ChoicePoint and Reed Elsevier's LexisNexis Unit.
Talkback
Sooner or later, those "amateurs" will become aware that information is more precious than a computer.
There is absolutely no excuse. This smarts of bad practice and cutting corners to increase profits. If companies of this magnitude can't do a simple thing like store sensitive data secuely it makes you wonder what else they can't do properly.
You forget that companies of that magnitude also invested plenty of budget into Microsoft computers (no doubt the overhead cost of which are getting charged right back at you) so don't expect them to "think ahead". They're just living in a world of wonders where being able to deal with problems and drawbacks are not part of the game plan. Basicly, it's an attitude thing.