Stolen Hard Drives Spark Identity Theft Concerns

Tucson, AZ (AHN) - Hard drives containing sensitive information regarding 40,000 children in Arizona were stolen from a Phoenix storage unit in mid-October, state officials said this week.

The hard drives were stolen from a storage unit used by the Arizona Department of Economic Security and contain information about children whose families were interested in DES programs.

The information includes names, addresses and phone numbers of families referred to DES for Early Intervention services. All information is password protected, said DES spokeswoman Liz Barker Alvarez.

The Early Intervention program provides a support system for children with disabilities up to 3-years old.

Several other storage units that were not being used by DES were also broken into, which leads police to believe DES was not targeted, the Arizona Daily Star reported.