LifeLock Blog

Several hard drives containing the personal information of 40,000 Arizona children were stolen from a public storage unit in Phoenix.

Families who applied for services from the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Early Intervention Program have received letters warning them that their children may be at risk of identity theft.

Names, addresses, phone numbers and children’s birth dates for all the families referred to the program over the past few years were on the stolen hard drives. If the families applied for and received services from the program, their Social Security numbers, insurance information and information about their children’s disabilities were also on the stolen hard drive.

The program provides support services to families with young children who have disabilities or developmental delays.

Because other storage units in the area were also broken into and robbed, DES spokeswoman Liz Barker Alvarez said they don’t think the DES hard drives were the target of the theft. The thieves stole several articles of furniture and electronics from the other units not used by DES.

Official also said the hard drive was password protected, making the sensitive information harder to access.

The identities of a half million children are stolen every year, according to a recent study by the Identity Theft Resource Center. Identity thieves target young children because it usually takes several years before the crime is detected—usually when the child is old enough to begin applying for a first job, a car loan or a student loan for college.