Houston employees’ personal information compromised during car burglary

Stock image of Houston City Hall Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009, in downtown Houston. Stock image of Houston City Hall Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009, in downtown Houston. Photo: Nick De La Torre, Staff Photo: Nick De La Torre, Staff Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Houston employees’ personal information compromised during car burglary 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

City of Houston employees' healthcare and Social Security data might have been compromised by a run-of-the-mill car burglary earlier this month, the city announced Friday.

A laptop computer was stolen from a human resource employee's personal vehicle on Feb. 2, the city said. The computer contained sensitive personal information for an unknown number of city employees, including names, addresses, birthdays, Social Security numbers and medical information otherwise protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

City officials said the employee failed to follow training about keeping sensitive information private. City employees are discouraged from bringing their work laptops out of the office unless the sensitive information found on the laptop is secured by an encryption.

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The laptop is protected by a password, the city said.

Detectives with the Houston Police Department and Office of Inspector General are working to determine how much, if any, information has been compromised. In the meantime, the city is sending out official notices to employees who might be affected.

The city is also offering free credit monitoring and other identity restoration services to those employees.

Jay R. Jordan is a breaking news reporter at Chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan.