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Time Warner personnel data tapes 'lost'

NEW YORK, May 3 (UPI) -- A Boston data storage company has apparently lost computer tapes with personal data on some 600,000 current and former Time Warner employees.

The tapes went missing in March when an Iron Mountain Inc. truck was transporting them to a storage facility, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

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The tapes held names and Social Security numbers and other data pertaining to the media conglomerate's 85,000 current employees as well as former employees dating to 1986. No customer data was lost.

"These errors happen from time to time, no matter how much money we invest in our security and processes, which is why we're very focused on educating our customers about encrypting data on their backup tapes," said an Iron Mountain spokeswoman.

A Time Warner spokeswoman said the company will start encrypting the data on its backup tapes even though "it's never been standard practice in the industry in part because it adds to the complexity of recovering the data."

Time Warner says it doesn't have any evidence the lost data has been misused.

The Secret Service is investigating.

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