Eircom computer theft exposes customer and employee data

The Eircom Group has confirmed that the theft of three laptops has resulted in the loss of information on 6,845 eMobile and Meteor customers along with 686 employees.

Two of the laptops were stolen Eircom premises at Parkwest, Dublin, with another machine being stolen from an employee’s home.

Paul Bradley, head of Communications, Eircom Group, confirmed that the stolen computers were not encrypted, despite a stated policy for such computers to be encrypted.

A statement from the group has said that "the incident was immediately reported to the Gardaí and an investigation is on-going." However, the data protection commissioner, Billy Hawkes was critical of Eircom for slow reporting of the incident. Speaking on RTE Radio 1 show, Morning Ireland, Hawkes commented that it was "very surprising" that it had taken so long for the incident to be reported the commission.

The computer that was stolen from the private residence of an Eircom employee contained "names and addresses of 686 Meteor employees." It has not yet been recovered and Gardaí are investigating.

The computers that were stolen from Eircom offices in Parkwest in Dublin contained "contained personal data for some current and former eMobile business customers," said an Eircom statement.

"Specifically, there is a potential data risk for 6,441 current and previous eMobile business customers, dating from August 2010 until December 2011. The data at risk for the vast majority of customers is personal data including names, addresses and telephone numbers. There is a small group of approximately 146 customers where financial data including bank account details may be at risk. There may also be a range of documentation used to support a customer application such as passport and drivers licence details, various photo ids or utility bills which all may have been used to establish proof of identity. In some cases financial data such as bank account, laser or credit card details is also at risk."

Bradley confirmed that the two machines stolen from the Parkwest office were in current use at the time. "They were used by our sales and support teams on the mobile side, and would have been processing applications submitted by e-mail."

The Eircom statement went on to say, "eircom treats privacy and protection of all data extremely seriously and we have taken the following pro-active measures to address the situation." Similar statements were made on both the Meteor and eMobile web sites, under the heading "Data Protection Update."

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