[Dataloss] Piper Jaffray apologizes to employees for W-2 goof

[Dissent]

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/business/16647381.htm


Oops.

The W-2s Piper Jaffray sent to current and former employees in 
January included employees' Social Security numbers on the outside of 
the envelope.

The numbers were not identified as Social Security numbers, but 
followed the standard XXX-XX-XXXX format. The incident affected more 
than the 1,000 employees the company employs today, since about 2,600 
people worked for Piper before the sale of its brokerage unit last year.

"At this time we have no indication that the printing error has 
resulted in any misuse of employee personal information," Todd 
Firebaugh, chief administrative officer of the Minneapolis-based 
company, wrote in a letter to Piper employees last week apologizing 
for the incident.

Executives indicated the mishap was an error by a third-party vendor, 
the name of which was not disclosed. The mailing didn't involve any 
customer data.

"We take the security of our employees' personal information very 
seriously," said Rob Litt, a spokesman for the company. "We are 
implementing corrective processing changes with our vendors."

The company will offer free 12-month credit monitoring to all 
employees affected.

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