An employee in Japan lost a USB stick containing personal data of an entire city’s population estimated at half a million people.
The BBC reported that the man (who was not identified) spent the evening drinking alcohol with his colleagues at a local restaurant in the city of Amagasaki, northwest of Osaka.
She added that the man lost consciousness in the street after drinking a lot of alcohol, and when he regained his senses, he realized that the chip containing information about the residents was missing, in addition to his bag.
City officials said the man was a private contractor in his forties whose job was to settle coronavirus relief payments to families.
The officials explained that after transferring the data to the memory stick, he was supposed to take it to an office in Osaka to offload the information, but he initially went to spend the night with his colleagues.
After realizing that the data had been lost, he reported it to the police.
They noted that the information on the USB includes names, addresses and dates of birth, as well as more sensitive information such as details of residents’ bank accounts.
They confirmed that the data was encrypted and a password, and pointed out that there is no indication of data leakage so far.
An employee loses a USB stick containing bank account details for residents of an entire city
