[Dataloss] Personal Info From PA. Welfare Rolls Stolen

[Rodney]

On Thu, 2007-12-06 at 18:50 -0600, Henry Brown wrote:

> The Department of Public Welfare began mailing letters Wednesday
> warning 
> the recipients to take steps to protect themselves from identity
> theft, 
> agency spokeswoman Anne Bale said.


This strikes me as odd and I have a couple of questions for the group.

1. If your data is lost and there is a clear "at fault" party as seems
to be the case here (the data was unencrypted) they isn't the "at fault
party supposed to provide ID theft protection? Is that a law or just
something done to reduce damages should they ever be sued over release
of personally identifiable information without informed consent?

2. If it is welfare rolls, then these people can't afford to do this on
their own, so again why isn't the state setting this up for them?

Rodney Wise
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