Government Sends Dealership Staff’s Personal Info To Media

Employees for a dealer group out of West Virginia are likely concerned about identity theft after the state department of labor made their personal information public.

Employees of the Cole Auto Group out of Bluefield, West Virginia had very personal information made public after a newspaper requested some related info. The West Virginia department of Labor released the name, salary and social security number tied to more than 200 employees of the Cole Auto Group. Reports indicate the labor department also released copies of checks from the store, which gave out account and routing information to the public.

Ralph Vines, GM of the Cole Automotive Group, spoke out about the action on the part of the Labor department telling the Gazette-Mail, “It’s incredible that we have a state agency that would act recklessly. I can’t imagine how something like that could happen.”

The breach of privacy occurred when the local newspaper, the Gazette-Mail, requested info from the state department of labor on four employees who had pay disputes with the group after they quit. The newspaper didn’t request the payroll information, but was sent it anyway.

The owner of Cole Automotive, Bill Cole, is running for governor and asked current West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomlin to investigate the breach of employee information. The state of West Virginia has apologized to Cole Automotive and will offer the impacted employees free credit monitoring for a year. Vines also asked the state government for a list of employees who have access to the information sent to the newspaper in an effort to find out if anyone else saw the personal info.

In this case, the state government released highly personal information about dealership staff without really being prompted to do so. What do you think of the offer from the state of credit monitoring as an apology? Is it enough?