Time Warner Loses Employee Records

Time Warner disclosed Monday it had lost tape backups containing personal information of 600,000 employees, becoming the latest in a string of companies to face the potential of identity theft. The tapes were lost by a data storage firm during transport, and Time Warner has called on the Secret Service to investigate.

Time Warner said the tapes were misplaced on March 22 by Iron Mountain when the firm was moving them to an offsite storage facility. Former and current employees are potentially at risk from the loss, but the company said the tapes contained no customer data.

"AOL talks a lot about caring for its employees. This will be a test as to how much they care about their former employees as well. I just want to be informed so I can take the appropriate measures to protect myself," a Time Warner employee who wished to remain anonymous told BetaNews.

Time Warner has begun notifying individuals whose data may have been on the tapes, and will watch credit reports for unusual activity. No reports of the data being accessed have surfaced thus far.

"We take the security of our employees’ personal information extremely seriously and we deeply regret that this incident occurred...We are working closely and aggressively with law enforcement and the outside data storage firm to get to the bottom of this matter," the company said in a statement.