AMR Corp., parent of American Airlines, Friday said a hard drive containing personal information on 79,000 retirees, former employees, and current employees has been stolen from the company’s pension department.
The theft from AMR’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, was discovered and reported June 4 and people who were potentially affected were notified by letters sent out Friday offering free one-year credit monitoring service, AMR said.
The drive contained data spanning 1960 through 1995. The data include names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers. The drive may have contained other data such as health insurance or bank account information, AMR said.
No customer information was stolen, the company said.
Shares of AMR were down 4.1 percent, at $6.35, on the New York Stock Exchange.
One month to notify people? What were they waiting for? An then a chintzy offer of one year of credit monitoring for the employee? What about the beneficiaries and dependents whose information including SS#’s was also stolen. And how does this happen? You don’t just walk in and disassemble AMR’s main computers to steal a hard drive. This was likely negligence in allowing employees to download info to laptops to work at home. Then the laptop is lost or stolen. How about ID theft insurance for a reasonable 7 years to cover the expense and time of fixing the problem that AMR created. This is all typical of AMR’s top level execs. The only people they treat worse than AMR passengers are AMR employees.