GLITCH

Contractor Loses USB Drive Holding an Entire City’s Personal Details During Drunken Night Out

The names, banking details, addresses, and other details of some 500,000 residents were on the device.

One worker must have had the worst hangover of his life after drunkenly losing a USB drive containing the personal details of every resident in one Japanese city. The local government in Amagasaki, which has a population of half a million, issued a statement Thursday revealing the truly spectacular data loss. The unnamed man, an employee with a company that gives benefits to tax-exempt households, went out for drinks after work this week. After drinking alcohol at a restaurant, he ended up falling asleep in the street and, when he woke up, found that his bag containing the USB drive was missing. The names, banking details, addresses, and other details of the city’s population were on the device. Authorities said that the drive is encrypted, so no breach of the data has yet been confirmed.