Identity and the 'old school'

The connection to 'digital' in the case of the missing 3.9-million Citifinancial customer records is that they were on data backup tape. That seems to be where it ends because as Newsday (Data lost for 4M Citi clients) -- among so many others -- says,

The Manhattan-based company [Citi] said that UPS lost the tapes containing information on 3.9 million customers from branches of its CitiFinancial consumer-finance division, as well as those with closed accounts. That represents all of the customers served by CitiFinancial branches.

Atlanta-based UPS acknowledged it has been unable to find the package, although a spokesman said a search is continuing.

Under the snarkier and relevantly-pointed headline What can brown do for you? GMSV points to at least one other media outlet that is squarely pointing at UPS:

Company video cameras show United Parcel Service Inc. picking up the box of computer tapes May 2 at a CitiFinancial facility in Weehawken, N.J., according to Kevin Kessinger, executive vice president of Citigroup's Global Consumer Group. But he said the driver did not scan the box when he picked it up, in violation of extra security measures UPS had agreed to take.

CitiFinancial did not know for nearly three weeks that the box failed to arrive at its destination. [Technews.com]

and

Norman Black, a UPS spokesman, said, We're very proud of our record of reliability . . ." [Newsday again].

I was, of course, a little premature and glib in the first paragraph because there is a second connection to "digital" here. It's that Citi is preparing and near ready to make the transition to electronic transmission of this information. Let's hope at the very least they'll figure out its missing faster than all that. ;-^)

Posted by Grayson at June 7, 2005 02:09 PM