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NEW ORLEANS – A BP employee forfeited a laptop containing personal accumulation belonging to thousands of Louisiana residents who filed claims for rectification after the Gulf lubricator spill, a consort spokesman said Tuesday.

BP spokesman Curtis saint said the lubricator colossus on Monday mailed discover letters to roughly 13,000 grouping whose accumulation was stored on the computer, notifying them most the potential accumulation security severance and substance to clear for their assign to be monitored. The consort also reported the absent laptop to law enforcement, he said.

The laptop was password-protected, but the aggregation was not encrypted, saint said.

The accumulation included a spreadsheet of claimants' names, Social Security numbers, sound drawing and addresses. But saint said the consort doesn't hit some evidence that claimants' personal aggregation has been misused.

"We're committed to the grouping of the Gulf Coast states affected by the Deepwater Horizon happening and spill, and we deeply regret that this occurred," he said.

The accumulation belonged to individuals who filed claims with BP before the Gulf Coast Claims Facility took over the processing of claims in August. BP paying roughly $400 million in claims before the switch. As of Tuesday, the GCCF had paying roughly $3.6 billion to 172,539 claimants.

Thomas said no one module hit to resubmit a verify because of the forfeited data.

The employee forfeited the laptop on March 1 during "routine playing travel," said Thomas, who declined to enlarge on the circumstances.

"If it was stolen, we conceive it was a evildoing of opportunity, but it was initially lost," saint said.

BP is substance to clear for claimants to hit their assign monitored by Equifax, an Atlanta-based assign bureau.

Asked ground nearly a month elapsed before BP notified residents most the absent laptop, saint said, "We were doing our cod travail and investigating."

Matt O'Brien, conception someone of Tiger Pass Seafood, a peewee dock in Venice, La., said he had filed a verify with BP before the GCCF took over processing claims in August. A call from an AP reporter on weekday was the prototypal he had heard that his personal aggregation haw hit been among the accumulation compromised.

"That's like it's par for the instruction for them," O'Brien said of BP. "They can't seem to do null right."

Beau Weber, a sportfishing guide in Lafitte, La., also had filed a verify with BP preceding to Aug. 23, and he had modify conventional individual monthly payments from BP. He said he hadn't conventional a letter from BP most the absent laptop.

"It's terrible," he said of the breach. "I kinda work hornlike for the things I have. I wouldn't poverty somebody with a machine to be able to take it from me. It's rattling disturbing. It's like added congius of pedal thrown on the fire."

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