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Workers Sue Union Pacific Over ID Theft

   July 2006
   In what is now becoming a sign of the times, nine employees of Union Pacific
   Corp., have filed suit on behalf of a class that could include as many as
   30,000 members against the nation's largest railroad over the way it uses
   Social Security numbers to identify employees.
   According to a July 4th article published by the Associated Press, Union
   Pacific announced in May that a computer containing the names and Social
   Security numbers of approximately 30,000 current or retired employees had
   been stolen from the home of a personnel employee on April 29. The company
   alleged that the employee had violated company policy by transferring work
   files to a private computer to work from home.
   As reported by the AP, a Union Pacific spokesperson said in May that the
   company had notified the 30,000 affected employees and retirees, paid for
   one year of credit monitoring and recommended they request fraud alerts be
   put on their files with the three major credit reporting agencies.
   AP reports that one of the plaintiffs alleged that employees continue to be
   put at risk daily because Social Security numbers are used to access routine
   information  at work and the group is unhappy that the company is only
   offering one year of credit monitoring.
   According to an employee, he is required to use his Social Security number
   to access information such as the hours of his next shift even though he
   also has another employee identity number.
   The  lawsuit alleges that the railroad acted negligently by failing to
   protect employees' Social Security numbers, by utilizing them for purposes
   other than tax reporting and by failing to use other employee-identifying
   numbers.
   The plaintiffs are requesting an unspecified amount of punitive damages and
   a jury trial.
   Union Pacific operates 38,654 miles of track in 23 states from the Midwest
   to the West and Gulf coasts.
   Once  again  we have what appears to be a case of authorized access to
   information evolving into alleged unauthorized copying and removal from
   corporate premises. Once again we have a laptop as the conduit for potential
   significant personal harm. Once again we hear about slavish dependency on
   Social Security numbers as "keys to the kingdom," and credit monitoring as
   the solution to the crisis. Yet there is no mention of fraud monitoring,
   encryption, employee continuing identity theft prevention education courses,
   stringent security protocols, security breach response programs or victim
   resolution
   Lax security procedures are creating nightmares for consumers and employees,
   land  mines  for shareholders, gold mines for identity thieves and new
   full-employment opportunities for Class Action litigators. Learning curve?
   .

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