White House staff and visitor information at risk after loss of government hard drive

White House staff and visitor information is at risk after the loss of a computer hard drive at the National Archives and Records Administration.

It is currently unknown whether the hard drive was simply lost or was actually stolen with the purpose of using the information, which includes Social Security numbers, personal data, and logs of events, social gatherings and political records. This information could put former presidents and their families at risk, since the data on these drives was highly sensitive and could be used in committing identity theft.

The National Archives and Records Administration is located in College Park, Maryland, a suburb in Washington. It is unknown when the drive went missing, but it is estimated to have been lost sometime between October of 2008 and March of 2009. With 1 terabyte of data stored on the drive, a lot of personal information is at stake.

The FBI is currently conducting a criminal investigation, but at this time, no one appears to have been victimized by the data loss. Identity theft protection is recommended.