Stolen laptop contains info about Minnesota residents

The Minnesota Department of Commerce says a laptop containing the personal information of hundreds of Minnesotans has been stolen in Philadelphia.

The Commerce Department says one of its vendors had a laptop stolen in Philadelphia on Dec. 6.

Department spokesman Bill Walsh said officials with Promissor Corp. informed the department Friday morning that the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and state license data of 219 Minnesotans were on the laptop.

"This company works for 41 of the 50 states and does this kind of work. They sent out an e-mail on Friday saying that they had a laptop stolen. It took us until today to figure out that Minnesota residents were on this laptop," says Walsh.

Walsh adds the department is unhappy that Promissor waited more than two weeks before notifying the state about the stolen laptop on Dec. 21.

"Once they notified us, we had the Christmas holiday and we couldn't get a hold of anybody," says Walsh. "We finally got to the bottom of it this morning, to know that there were Minnesota residents on this laptop and who they were, so we can start notifying them."

The data was stored on an employee's computer hard drive, which was protected by a password but lacked more sophisticated encryption.

Walsh says the company has agreed to pay for a year of credit watch monitoring service for the people whose names were on the laptop.

Promissor manages licensing data for the real estate, mortgage and debt collection industries in Minnesota.

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