The Daily Toreador - Student Newspaper of Texas Tech

Issue date: 1/11/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Adam Young

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced the filing of a state lawsuit accusing a Levelland facility owned by a Pennsylvania rehabilitation company of violating state identity theft protection laws.

At a press conference in Lubbock Thursday, Abbott said the lawsuit accuses Select Physical Therapy Texas Limited Partnership and Select Medical Corporation of exposing its clients records, including Social Security and bank account numbers, to identity theft.

The business is accused of violating provisions of the 2005 Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act, which requires businesses to protect and properly dispose of clients' sensitive personal information, according to a press release from the attorney general's office.

"We're trying to send a message to businesses across the State of Texas: 'you have a responsibility to shred or redact information in your records that contains personal identifying information of your customers,'" Abbott said.

At the conference, Abbott praised the work of the Levelland Police Department, which apprehended a suspect crawling out of a trash can behind Select Physical Therapy Texas. The officers discovered the trash can contained records of the business's clients.

In the lawsuit, the attorney general requests a fine of up to $500 for each record containing personal identifying information and civil penalties of up to $50,000 for each violation.

Toney Cowan, chief of the Levelland Police Department, thanked the attorney general for his office's involvement in the case.

"When we came across this, this was something that we knew was probably too big for us to handle," Cowan said.

In the case of Select Physical Therapy Texas, Abbott said more than 1,000 people have been exposed to identity theft, but because the investigation is still in its early stages, his office has not determined if anyone became the victim of identity theft.

Abbott said he recommends anyone who believes they have been exposed to identity theft contact the attorney general's office to file a complaint or raise a concern and monitor their personal bank and credit card accounts daily to ensure nobody has opened a new account based upon a stolen identity.

"Anyone who suffers from identity theft is going to spend countless hours trying to recover the information and recover their good name and likely will spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in that process," he said.

Along with individuals, Abbott said identity theft can be costly for businesses, which nationally lose approximately $50 billion each year because of identity theft.

"By us enforcing these laws on identity theft, we're helping to protect consumers as well as businesses, making this country and this state a safer and better place," he said.

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