What's a few Social Security numbers among friends?

Via AmericaBlog we learn that AP reported on April 20 that

[l]eading online discount broker Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Tuesday it has informed about 200,000 current and former customers that a backup computer tape containing their personal information has been lost. ...

The company realized the tape was missing in February, when the package it was in was damaged during shipping between vendors, [spokeswoman Donna] Kush said. ...

Information on the tape was for people nationwide who may have been Ameritrade customers from 2000-2003, she said. The data was different for each client and may have included their Social Security numbers, among other information, Kush said. ...

Kush said she has not heard of any misuse of the information.

Well, duh with a PR stamp. How could they have heard of any such "misuse?" If customers had any bad experiences, how would they know it had anything to do with their Ameritrade account, since they weren't told of the problem? And why did it take the company over two months to notify those potentially affected?

But it seems that Ameritrade is not the only company having trouble keeping its hands on customer information. AP reported on Tuesday that

[t]hieves who accessed a DSW Shoe Warehouse database obtained 1.4 million credit card numbers and the names on those accounts - 10 times more than investigators estimated last month.

Besides the credit card numbers, the thieves obtained driver's license numbers and checking account numbers from 96,000 transactions involving checks, the company said. Customer names, addresses and Social Security numbers were not stolen [in that case], DSW said.

The company says that so far it has contact information on about half of those affected - which, of course, means that the other half may never know for sure.

ChoicePoint Inc., Bank of America, and BJ's Wholesale Club have also reported security failures threatening the safety of personal information of late. Meanwhile,

Dayton-based LexisNexis said Monday it has begun notifying about 280,000 people whose personal information may have been accessed by unauthorized individuals using stolen passwords and IDs.

That figure is nine times the 32,000 people affected by original estimates.

And to make you feel really secure, how about what Reuters reported on Tuesday:

Computer-security flaws at the U.S. tax-collection agency expose millions of taxpayers to potential identity theft or illegal police snooping, according to a congressional report released on Monday.

The Internal Revenue Service also is unlikely to know if outsiders are browsing through citizens' tax returns, because it doesn't effectively police its computer systems for unauthorized use, the Government Accountability Office found. ...

The IRS over the past several years has taken steps to protect the information it collects, the report found. The agency has fixed 32 of the 53 problems that turned up in a 2002 review, the GAO said.

But the GAO found 39 new security problems on top of the 21 that remain unfixed.

Somehow, I don't think this is the kind of "security breach" that the Department for the Security of the Fatherland will be looking into.