Sovereign Bank laptops stolen

Reading, Pa.-based Sovereign Bank Tuesday confirmed that it has sent letters to thousands of its customers warning them that their personal information may have been compromised in two separate incidents in which a total of three laptops were stolen in early August.

Carl Brown, a bank spokesman, refused to disclose the number of people who may have been affected by the thefts but said it involved roughly 1 percent of the bank's total customer base.

The thefts were reported in "early August," but the company didn't start sending letters to the affected customers until Aug. 21, after completing a "thorough investigation" of the incidents, Brown said. All three laptops were stolen from undisclosed locations within Massachusetts. Two of the laptops were stolen from one location, while the third was reported stolen in a separate incident from a different location, he said. The company has 800 community banks and does business primarily in the Northeast.

The stolen laptops, all three of which were company-issued, are believed to have contained personally identifiable information such as the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of the bank's account holders, Brown said. Though the systems were password-protected, the data was not encrypted, he said.