Can a company be held accountable for allowing a laptop with Social Security numbers be stolen?

Our university was working with Sungard Banner back in the late 90's and an employee had Social Security numbers, addresses and names downloaded on his laptop computer. This employee worked for Sungard. A couple of weeks ago someone stole his laptop with all this information on it. I received a letter explaining what happened and they advised me to allow the credit companies to monitor our credit reports for fradulent activity free of charge. Shouldn't someone be held accountable for this terrible mistake. Why was the info not deleted since it was back in the late 90's when this data was taken?? What rights do I have??

Can a company be held accountable for allowing a laptop with Social Security numbers be stolen?vista

READ READ READ!!!

it is actually a scam... I have heard this one. A company apologises for losing your info, they offer to monitor your credit for free for six months but see you a membership for ever. Scare tactic and a way for the them to GET YOUR INFO!! its new and don't fall for it.

Can a company be held accountable for allowing a laptop with Social Security numbers be stolen?antispyware

Their responsibility is to notify anyone who had info in the computer by letter, which they did. So now monitoring your credit is up to you. IF you have your identitiy stolen or lose money in the situation, you can talk to a lawyer about checking to see if they were haphazard with the info or taking the proper precautions to keep it safe. Chances are they were doing what any other company does to keep their records safe. Theft happens. I am sure they didnt leave their doors wide open with a sign that said take this one, its got personal info! So most likely there would be no case for you. Good luck. I have gotten these letters myself and they do sound pretty frightening. But nothing has came of them yet.
No one "allows" something to get stolen. The question is whether the company took reasonable precautions to maintain the confidentiality of the information. In this case I do not believe that it did so. Having said that, if there have been no reprecussions as a result of the stealing I doubt that you have a case. Why sue if you have no damages?
You have the right to be compensated for any damages you incur as a result of this. For example, if fraudulent activity does occur and it costs you in terms of time and money to deal with it, you have the right to be reimbursed for your trouble.