Starbucks, after two months of looking for them, has admitted that they can't find four laptop computers, including two that have private information of 60,000 of their former or current U.S. employees.
Included with the personal data are the names, addresses and social security numbers of the people. While the company said that the data is three years old, that has no consolation for those that may have their social security numbers exposed.
Valerie O'Neil, a spokeswoman for Starbucks says, "We have no reason to believe these laptops are in the hands of someone who wants to 
misuse them," O'Neil said. "We just want to make every effort to protect our partners."
O'Neil added that the reason the company waited so long was because "we wanted to make sure we were thorough before we notified people."
In reality, that's a lame excuse. How hard would it have been for them to let people know that they needed to be extra vigilant because their private information may be exposed to someone that could damage their finances?
Let's face it; the real reason is that they were hoping to find them before they had to admit they had lost them in the first place.
O'Neil also said that the company was strengthening its corporate policies and procedures to prevent this in the future.
The problem to me is why it always takes a company losing private data to then decide to protect their employees? Does everybody really think that it can't happen to them?
Concerning why identity theft hasn't resulted in much larger damage at this time, Thomas Harkins, operations director for MasterCard International’s fraud division for about twenty years told TopTech news:
“There’s so many stolen identities in criminals’ hands that (identity theft) could easily rise 20 times. The criminals are still trying to figure out what to do with all the data.”
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