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State Monitoring Blockbuster's Response To ID Data Breach

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TODD RUGER / Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: October 25, 2007

SARASOTA COUNTY - A box of Blockbuster video store forms with credit card and Social Security information that was dumped in a trash container last week now is under Sarasota County Sheriff's Office protection.

The Florida Attorney General's Office is requesting copies of the approximately 400 membership forms and employment applications to make sure Blockbuster notifies anyone whose information might have been compromised.

And Blockbuster has sent a memo to all of its stores -- about 4,000 -- reinforcing the company policy requiring that all documents generated in the store be destroyed when no longer kept on file.

"Our stores have shredders, and we have procedures in place to protect our customer information," Blockbuster corporate spokesman Randy Hargrove said Wednesday. "What's been reported on this was an isolated incident."

Though law enforcement campaigns have educated individuals about the need to shred financial information documents to protect identities, businesses with that information are not always careful.

Problems such as the one at Blockbuster are a growing concern in the mortgage industry, where the housing downturn is forcing many companies that handle paperwork in the complex mortgage process to shut down, the Wall Street Journal reported this week.

The Texas attorney general filed a lawsuit against a company that in July improperly disposed of documents that had Social Security numbers and other personal information of more than 100 customers. The lawsuit seeks penalties of up to $50,000 per violation.

Last month, workers remodeling a school in Connecticut chucked personnel data into and around an overflowing trash bin.

"This happens quite a bit," said Jeremiah Miller, a manager at Kroll Fraud Solutions, a company that helps businesses recover after data thefts.

Companies should teach employees how to maintain the data, and they should do periodic audits of whether policies are being followed, as well as do background checks on employees, Miller said.

"Companies should be treating customer information like money," Miller said.

"They have a responsibility if they collect the information to safeguard the information."

About 30 percent of identity theft cases can be tracked back to businesses as the source of a personal information breach, according to the Javelin Strategy and Research 2006 Identity Fraud Survey Report.

Nine percent of identity thefts result from mail theft or items gleaned from trash cans, the study says.

That is why Sarasota Police Department Detective Jack Carter says residents need to "get a doggone shredder."

"Shred everything. Don't put anything in the trash."

There are groups out there recruiting the homeless or drug addicts to search trash containers for financial information and then reward them for finds, Carter said.

The discarded forms from the Blockbuster video store at Fruitville Road and Honore Avenue included names, addresses, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers -- a treasure trove for identity thieves.

A company internal investigation has started and could result in disciplinary action up to being fired.

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