Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

As retailers try and review their data-protection policies, it’s not a bad idea to extend it all the way down to the personal laptops of consultants working for every partner company. That’s the lesson the Neiman Marcus Group learned today, when they had to announce that “computer equipment owned by a third-party pension benefits plan consultant containing files with sensitive employee information was reported stolen.”

Neiman officials said they had no reason to believe the information had been accessed but they nonetheless are paying for Equifax credit monoitoring for any people whose data was on the computer.

The company statement said that the computer’s data “contained two-year-old data that was current as of August 30, 2005 and which included the private information of nearly 160,000 current and former Neiman Marcus Group employees (including current and former employees of Neiman Marcus Stores, Neiman Marcus Direct, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, Horchow Finale, Last Call, Chefs Catalog, and Contempo Casuals) and individuals receiving a Neiman Marcus Group pension.”