Personal information of 48 faculty members and more than 2,500 students and applicants of a Cal State L.A. teacher credential program was on a portable disk drive that was recently stolen, authorities said Tuesday.
The university's Charter College of Education is notifying 2,534 people enrolled or who have applied to its credential program between 2003 and 2006 of the security breach.
"Our primary concerns are to notify those possibly affected by this and to take additional measures to prevent similar incidents," said Mary Falvey, the college's dean. "We are notifying enrolled and non-enrolled persons connected with our teacher credentialing program during 2003 to 2006, as well as faculty supervisors, about this incident."
Letters have been mailed directly to those affected, that refers them to credit bureaus and other agencies where they can find information about how to protect themselves against fraud and property theft.
The college was recently informed that an employee's USB drive was inside a purse stolen from a car trunk in the Norwalk area.
Information on the drive included first and last names, Social Security numbers, campus identification numbers, phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
It is not known whether the thief or thieves have accessed the data.
The college has also set up a toll-free calling center at (800) 883-4029 and a Web site, www.calstatela.edu/usbincident.