Remember those REALLY dumb commercials for ING? You know,
a few years ago the company introduced its new identity using commercials where it looked like part of the name was hidden?

Well nothing, it seems, is hidden at ING, including customer
data.

Last week a laptop containing personal data, including

social security numbers, for 13,000 District of Columbia

retirees and workers was stolen. ING is responsible for overseeing the security of D.C.

government workers’ retirement plans so this is probably all or mostly government workers who have had their identities compromised. (Does that give all you terrorists out there any ideas about who you might have some leverage on?)

Ironically enough, last year California U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein
introduced a reasonably decent privacy and identity theft bill into Congress.

The ironic part is that, on June 7, 2005, ING joined E-Loan as the first major
companies to endorse the bill.

AHH smoke and mirrors, what would companies and politicians do without it?

BTW, if you are interested in protecting your privacy

(certainly government agencies, schools, banks, and most companies aren’t), you

might want to check out PrivacyRights.org which lists the record for the past


two years – not a good record, the site specifies the theft of personal

information for 88,347,279 people. Of course some of those may be the same

people on multiple lists if that provides any slight comfort.