AICPA Handles Potential P.R. Fiasco With Professionalism And Value To Its Membership

Kudos to the AICPA for its top-notch handling of a sticky situation.

The Institute found itself juggling a hot potato after an absent-minded employee - in direct violation of AICPA policy - sent a restored computer hard drive out for repairs. The hard drive contained members' names, addresses

There's no reason to believe the hard drive was inappropriately accessed, but the AICPA acted swiftly and authoritatively to protect its members. It partnered with Consumerinfo.com to provide members with a year of credit monitoring at the Institute's expense. The service is available as of May 23. It provides automatic daily monitoring of members' credit reports, e-mail alerts of key changes to members' credit reports at the three major credit bureaus, $10,000 in identity theft insurance, and access to fraud resolution representatives for victims of identity theft.

The AICPA also is deleting Social security numbers from its databases and will cease collecting and maintaining them as a general rule. Instead, it's developing a new way to uniquely identify members.

The AICPA also letters to members informing them of the situation and explaining the measures taken. The letter provided the phone numbers and Web addresses of the major credit bureaus. For more information, visit www.aicpa.org/privacyinfo or e-mail securityinfo@aicpa.org.