Computer hard drives and backup tapes containing the payroll records of more than 20,000 people and businesses were stolen from a Manheim Township accounting firm, police said.
A Walz, Deihm, Geisenberger, Bucklen & Tennis official said Tuesday that the equipment — taken from an employee's vehicle in West Lampeter Township last month — contains the names, tax information, Social Security numbers and other information of its clients' employees and workers at the firm.
Michael W. Lambert, a spokesman for Walz, Deihm, Geisenberger, Bucklen & Tennis, said the data-storage units were stolen while they were being "taken off-site as part of the firm's disaster recovery plan."
The stolen information includes bank account numbers of people with direct deposit, but the company doesn't believe the thief or thieves were searching for the hard drives and tapes.
"There were several items stolen in the same area the same evening, so we really don't think this was somebody going after information," Lambert said.
Lambert said the company is mailing letters to individuals whose information might have been compromised.
He said most of the missing data is from employers and individuals in the area.
It is unclear how long the 30-year-old firm, located at 2929 Lititz Pike, maintains client records. "Part of what the company does requires that you carry a degree of history so you can do comparisons back to prior periods," Lambert said.
The firm does both payroll and year-end income tax processing. Lambert said the "bulk" of the missing data is password-protected and used in "fairly unusual" applications that are specific to the accounting industry.
"They're not the sort of thing that would be accessible through most home computer software," Lambert said.
He said the company has been closely monitoring its employees' accounts and "nothing has come up; it does not look like the information was accessed."
The theft occurred Nov. 5, police said. West Lampeter Township police Chief James Walsh said the firm didn't report it until Nov. 10.
"We're still in the process of gathering information," Walsh said Tuesday. "It was a theft from a vehicle in our jurisdiction, and from what we know, it happened on Nov. 5 and was reported to us on Nov. 10."
Neither police nor the accounting firm would disclose precisely where the theft took place or who last possessed the tapes and drives.
Lambert, asked about the five-day gap between the theft and notification of police, said it took the firm several days to assess the situation.
Lambert said no credit card information is included in the missing data. However, the information could potentially be used to obtain credit cards and make illegal financial transactions in a person's name.
The letters mailed by the firm urge recipients to monitor their credit accounts and place a fraud alert on their credit files. "A fraud alert instructs creditors to contact you before they open new accounts or change your existing accounts," according to the letter.
The date theft is the latest in a string of incidents in which large databases of personal information were stolen:
• In April, a computer stolen from General Internal Medicine of Lancaster contained the names, addresses, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers of many of the patients who visited the office from 2005 through 2007.
• In July 2006, a laptop computer containing the personal information of about 12,000 current and former employees of Armstrong World Industries was stolen from an employee of Deloitte & Touche LLP, a firm that conducts regular internal audits for Armstrong.
On a larger scale:
• In August 2007, a hacker stole more than 1.6 million records belonging to several hundred thousand people from Monster Worldwide Inc.'s job-search service.
• In May 2006, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced that a burglar stole a laptop computer that contained information about millions of veterans.
E-mail: pburns@lnpnews.com