Burglars take state records, posing risks of ID theft

A recent break-in at a storage unit could cause problems for thousands of people in Arizona.

Several hard drives containing information about clients of the Arizona Department of Economic Security were stolen in the October burglary.

"It really affected anyone who had applied, or been accepted, to DES' Early Intervention Program over the past several years," said Todd Davis, chief executive officer of Lifelock, a personal security firm headquartered in Tempe.

DES is sending letters to the families of up to 40,000 children whose information was stolen.

Anyone who gets a letter should place a fraud alert with the major credit reporting agencies, Davis said.

"What a fraud alert does is it tells anyone calling up your credit report that you have a concern that you are, or are going to be, a victim of identity theft."

You can tell the agencies that you want to be contacted before any credit application in your name is approved.

Things like full names and addresses may have been stolen from DES, Davis said.

"We call those the keys to the kingdom. Once they have that personal information on any individual, they are now susceptible to be victims of identity theft."

Besides watching their credit reports closely, Davis advised that people "got out at least once a year and request a work history with the Social Security Administration to make sure someone hasn't utilized that child's identity or your identity to go gain employment somewhere else."

On the Web: www.lifelock.com