A hard drive containing sensitive information including social security numbers and bank account information on 100,000 Transportation Security Administration employees has gone missing from its headquarters and the FBI has been notified, according to a 7 p.m. EST press release from the agency.

The external hard drive contained 100,000 archived employment records – including name, social security number, date of birth, payroll information, bank account and routing information of individuals employed by the agency from January 2002 until August 2005. The agency said it learned about the missing drive Thursday but wasn't sure if the hard drive was simply misplaced in the office or stolen. The Secret Service is contributing its forensic help, but the press release makes no mention of whether the drive, housed at the TSA's Office of Human Capital, was encrypted.

Last June, the Office of Management and Budget ordered that all federal mobile computers and devices containing sensitve information be encrypted. While the directive doesn't specify, presumably that order (.pdf) includes external hard drives.

TSA said it was starting to notify affected individuals and is lining up a free year of credit monitoring services for individuals "as necessary."

While the TSA's announcement stressed it has "zero tolerance for employees not following policies on data protection and will take swift disciplinary action, including dismissal, against individuals found to be in violation of our procedures, TSA's web policy privacy practices are already under scrutiny by one Congressional committee, following THREAT LEVEL's reporting of flaws in an online watchlist redress system.