Tech Shout!

A laptop which contained the Social Security numbers and various other important personal information was stolen from the Washington residence of an ING U.S. Financial Services employee.

On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that the data belonged to 13,000 District of Columbia workers and retirees. To their misfortune, the laptop was not secured by a password or encryption.

The employee whose home was broken into did not breach company policy by carrying the laptop home, the newspaper reported.

The company told the Post it had informed authorities of the theft, but police would neither confirm the burglary nor give details about the incident.

A spokeswoman for ING U.S. Financial services said that most of the laptops used by employees use encryption software, but this incident “reveals a gap” in the company’s security, the newspaper said.

Two other ING laptops containing information on 8,500 Florida hospital workers were stolen in December, but the employees were not notified until this week, ING spokesman Chuck Eudy said.

This is just one in a long string of companies losing personal data. Often, the information is lost when thieves steal laptops with unencrypted data.

In March, Fidelity Investment’s lost laptop had put Hewlett Packard employees at risk.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced last month that the personal information of more than 26 million veterans was lost when a thief nabbed a laptop from a worker’s home and just around a fortnight back a laptop theft put Hotels.com customers’ data at probable risk.