Personal info of Chicago Teachers mass mailed (SSN's, addresses...)

[n2doc]

Teachers' IDs mailed by mistake
1,740 Social Security numbers included in city schools' packets

By Courtney Flynn
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 27, 2006

A printing contractor for the Chicago Public Schools said Sunday that it mistakenly mailed a list of names, Social Security numbers and home addresses of nearly 1,740 former school employees as part of a packet of health-insurance information to them.

Broadview-based All Printing & Graphics Inc., which was hired to print, stuff and mail the packets, said it did not realize an e-mail from the Chicago Public Schools contained the personal data. The e-mail requested that the company send open enrollment information to former employees still receiving health-care coverage through the schools.

"I think it's just human error," said Ralph Fowlkes, the company's general manager, who oversaw the project. "It's not that anybody blatantly tried to do anything. ... We certainly apologize for the mix-up."

Chicago school officials acknowledged Sunday that the printer sent the list to some former employees who receive health coverage, but they were not certain how many. A spot check showed that some received the packet of insurance information but not the list, said spokesman Michael Vaughn.

Some former employees who got the packets in the mail over the weekend said they were shocked to find the 125-page list of personal data about themselves and others. They feared the information could be delivered to the wrong address or end up in the wrong hands, leaving them vulnerable to fraud.

Retired elementary school teacher Peggy Janik said she had spent the last few weeks pushing years worth of old receipts and paycheck stubs through her new shredder to protect her most private information, only to find the list in her mail Saturday.

"I worked at it to keep my identity closed and hidden, and in a moment it was gone. Seventeen hundred-plus people now have it," Janik, 60, said Sunday. "We feel totally violated. It's horrifying."

more:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0611270227nov27,1,2440671.story

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Yeah there's nothing like "security" in the Information Age.

And then you have my bank which, without my knowing, disabled my debit card simply because I actually used it a few times in one day rather than having my wife use hers. They then wanted to verify every single transaction in the batch. And this was some guy in a call center in Bangalore checking up on me. I just had to laugh.

[Sherman A1]

2. That's when you tell them

to stick it where the sun don't shine and close the account.