According to "E-mail ensnarls bank in privacy inquiry," by Cynthia Wilson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Southern Commercial Bank is under investigation for divulging details about 40,000 customers to an outsider:
Southern Commercial Bank may have compromised the privacy of more than 40,000 customers - and may have violated state and federal guidelines - by e-mailing unsecured personal data to an independent computer programmer.The information included bank account and Social Security numbers as well as addresses for the customers, who have demand deposits and loans. Demand deposits include checking, savings and money market accounts.
. . .
Computer programmer Rick Henderson of Kirkwood said Tom Green, vice president at Southern Commercial's South Grand Boulevard branch, sent an e-mail in October that included the information in an attachment. At the time, Henderson was a subcontractor, trying to finish work on a computer program that was to help the bank improve customer service. He had no written agreement with the bank or its contractor, Micr Automation Inc., which had hired him to do the work.
"All I needed was just a few records. I didn't need the real stuff," Henderson said. "I just about fell out of my chair when I opened it, and it was the real thing."
Henderson said he had received information on more than 40,000 of the bank's customers.
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