A backup tape containing personal information of 650,000 customers of J.C. Penney and about 100 other retailers went missing. Social Security numbers of 150,000 customers are stored on the tape. The missing backup tape was not encrypted…

The information was on a backup computer tape that was discovered missing last October. It was being stored at a warehouse run by Iron Mountain Inc., a data storage company, and was never checked out but can’t be found either, said Richard C. Jones, a spokesman for GE Money, part of General Electric Capital Corp.

Jones said there was “no indication of theft or anything of that sort,” and no evidence of fraudulent activity on the accounts involved.

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