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Ohio: Stolen Device Contains 859,800 IDs
A stolen computer storage device contained more than twice the number of taxpayers' identifications than had been previously reported, Gov. Ted Strickland said Wednesday, but he emphasized there is still no indication the data have been compromised.
The names and Social Security numbers of 561,126 people who had not cashed state income refund checks were on the device, as well as 14,874 people who did business with the state, according to an ongoing review of the information it held. That brings the total number of taxpayers affected to 859,800, Strickland said.
The device was stolen June 10 from an intern's unlocked car. Strickland said no ID theft cases linked to the stolen device have been reported, and that extracting data from it would require a high degree of knowledge and specialized equipment.
In addition to the refund check recipients, others whose information was on the device include state employees, welfare recipients and lottery winners who have yet to cash their tickets.
Strickland noted that the estimate of affected people may include duplicates because some people may belong to more than one of the groups whose information was on the device.