http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1149113029270&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492 By TYLER HAMILTON BUSINESS REPORTER Jun. 1, 2006 Toronto software provider Hummingbird Ltd. has found itself at the centre of an embarrassing privacy accident involving the social security numbers of 1.3 million American students. Hummingbird disclosed yesterday evening that one of its employees lost a piece of computer equipment that contained the names and social security numbers of customers who borrowed funds from Round Rock, Tex.-based Texas Guaranteed, a non-profit company that administers a U.S. family education loan program. "The privacy of customer data is of utmost importance to us and we take our responsibility to safeguard it very seriously. We deeply regret that this incident has occurred," Barry Litwin, Hummingbird’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. "We continue to investigate the facts surrounding this loss of information and are taking all necessary action in order to ensure that such occurrences do not happen in the future." Hummingbird, which announced on May 26 that it is being acquired by Palo Alto, Calif.-based holding company Symphony Technology Group for $465 million (U.S.), said it has no reason to believe the equipment was stolen to obtain confidential data. The company said the equipment was password-protected and that it was "extremely unlikely" the data would be misused. Hummingbird was given the data as part of a contract to develop a custom document management system for Texas Guaranteed. According to information on Texas Guaranteed’s Web site, the equipment was lost on May 24 but Hummingbird didn’t notify the company until mid-afternoon on May 26, the day Hummingbird disclosed its deal with Symphony. The U.S. loan provider said that customers whose information was lost will be notified over the coming weeks and given advice on how to guard against identity theft. "Even though this information is not easily accessed and used, and even though the loss appears to be inadvertent, we are issuing this release out of an abundance of caution, because the piece of equipment has not been located," said Sue McMillin, president and CEO of Texas Guaranteed, in a statement. The use of social security numbers as a form of identification in the United States has been a topic of considerable controversy in recent weeks. In early May, computer disks containing the social security numbers of 26.5 million U.S. veterans were stolen from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, putting millions of Americans at risk of identity fraud. _________________________________ Attend the Black Hat Briefings and Training, Las Vegas July 29 - August 3 2,500+ international security experts from 40 nations, 10 tracks, no vendor pitches. www.blackhat.com
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