Timeshare Resales News : Will your personal information be next to be lost?

It gives us all a sick feeling in the stomach every time we read about how yet another organization loses proprietary personal information entrusted to the organization.

Do individuals who work for large companies and web organizations respect the great trust given to the company, expecting the individuals to take every precaution imaginable to protect the information?

An recent example occurred in December 2005, when a number of back-up tapes belonging to the timeshare unit of Marriott International Inc. disappeared from a Florida office.

The information on the tapes relates to 206,000 employees, timeshare owners, and timeshare customers of Marriott Vacation Club International and includes Social Security numbers and bank and credit card details. Early indications suggest that as the tapes were not lost in transit, there could be employee involvement in the loss.

Sometimes the loss occurs as a result of giving the information to a third party organization, or by transfering the information to a back up entity without first encrypting the data.

The latest loss, and it is a huge one, was just reported:

Disks with the personal data of more than 26 million U.S. veterans were stolen from the home of a Veterans Affairs employee, the department announced today.

The data included names, dates of birth and social security numbers of all living veterans who have been discharged since 1976.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said the employee, a data analyst, did not have authorization to take home the data, which was stolen this month.


Read the full story here.

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Larry Hayden

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