Fergie's Tech Blog

IDs of Active-Duty Military Personnel on Stolen VA Laptop

An AP newswire article by Hope Yen, via the HeraldTribune.com, reports that:

Personal data on up to 50,000 active Navy and National Guard personnel were among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee last month, the government said Saturday in a disclosure that goes beyond what VA initially reported.

VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said in a statement that his agency discovered after an internal investigation that the names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth of up to 20,000 National Guard and Reserve personnel who were on at least their second active-duty call-up were "potentially included."

In addition, the same information on up to 30,000 active-duty Navy personnel who completed their first enlistment term prior to 1991 also were believed to stored on the computer laptop and disks stolen from a VA data analyst at his Aspen Hill, Md., home on May 3.

The VA has previously said the stolen data involved up to 26.5 million veterans discharged since 1975, as well as some of their spouses; veterans discharged before 1975 also were deemed at risk if they submitted claims to the agency.

posted by Fergie @ 6/04/2006 12:32:00 PM