AK and PriceWaterHouseCooper Rectify Identity Theft Breach
The state of Alaska and PriceWaterHouseCooper LLP announced on Thursday that they had reached a settlement involving roughly 77,000 public employees who had their names misplaced in a breach and put at an increased risk of identity theft by the firm.
The identity theft breach resulting in the misplaced names occurred when Mercer, an actuary for the state, gave personal information data of 77,000 current and former Alaskan public employees in the Public Employees Retirement System and the Teachers Retirement System in 2003-2004 to PWHC.
However, in early December the firm noticed the personal information data had gone missing, but did not inform the state of the identity theft breach until last week.
Alaskan Attorney General Dan Sullivan said the settlement between the two parties was quickly negotiated in order to inform and protect all whose personal information may have been compromised in the identity theft breach. The deal included provisions that would require PWHC to protect the state's finances and repay up to $100,000 of the costs taken by Alaska to make the identity theft data breach known.
"In this settlement, PricewaterhouseCoopers has accepted responsibility for this security failure," Sullivan said. "Most importantly, the firm has agreed to protect Alaskans by paying for identity theft protection and credit-monitoring, or a security freeze, for each of the 77,000 Alaskans who are potentially affected by this identity theft breach and by ensuring that Alaskans are reimbursed for losses that they might incur as a result of ID theft caused by this breach."
Sullivan added that the settlement and action by both parties had enabled all those initially affected by the identity theft breach to be protected by credit monitoring to avoid falling victim in the event of any identity theft-related crime.
While PWHC is still working with the Alaska Department of Law to track down the missing personal information, the Department of Administration is preparing notices that will soon be sent to all affected individuals informing them of their right to credit monitoring in the event of an identity theft breach.
