A laptop with personal information on hundreds of thousands of Boeing Co. employees was stolen earlier this month, and the aerospace company will inform those potentially affected by the theft in a company e-mail today.
"In the first week of December, a laptop was stolen from an employee's car," Boeing spokeswoman Kelly Danaghy said. "That laptop had files that contained Social Security numbers for about 382,000 past and present employees, and in most cases it also included a home address, phone number and date of birth."
There was no reason to believe that any of the stolen information has been used illegally, she said.
It was unclear Tuesday whether the data was encrypted. No banking or credit card information was stored in those files, but the company will provide free three-year credit monitoring for employees whose personal information was compromised.
The company employs about 156,000 people, with 68,000 of those employed in Washington state.
Past employees whose information was stored in the files will be notified of the theft by mail this week, Danaghy said.
Boeing does not want to reveal what city the theft occurred in because the person who took the computer might not realize what he or she has. But Danaghy said the computer contained information about employees at all Boeing plants.
This isn't the first time the theft of a laptop has compromised security for Boeing employees.
In April, the personal information of about 3,600 employees was compromised when a laptop was taken from a Boeing human resources employee at an airport. In November 2005, a similar theft put the personal data of about 161,000 employees in jeopardy.
Last month, a Boeing online memo warned that another computer with "old, unencrypted salary planning files containing personally identifiable information on 762 individuals" had been taken from an employee's home. "This incident underscores the importance for all Boeing employees to either use encryption or rid their computers of old, unused files, particularly those containing personally identifiable information," Boeing said in the memo.
In reports about previous thefts, the company has said it has more than 75,000 laptops, and that about 250 were stolen last year.
"We want to make sure that (employees are) as protected as possible," Danaghy said. "As a company, we're also taking preventive steps."
Even before the latest laptop theft, Boeing was planning to implement a policy that all company computers have encryption software installed on them, Danaghy said. The company also is looking at finding a way to identify employees other than by using their Social Security numbers.
Danaghy declined to reveal what agency is investigating the theft, but she said a law enforcement agency is working closely with Boeing's security staff to recover the computer.