We have helped some departments laugh their way through training with Privacy Police Sticky Notes and we have written in the Lessons Learned about branch fines for loose laptops (see "An Ounce of Prevention - and a Laptop can Weigh a Lot of Ounces") and you may ask why this is so important? Ask Matrix Bancorp of Colorado why.

Between 1:30 and 2:30 on the afternoon of Friday, July 28th, someone left their branch with two laptops owned by Martix and containing confidential corporate as well as customer information. Following proper IT security procedures these laptops are password protected and the data is encrypted. Still, Matrix is now in a defensive position monitoring customer accounts for unauthorized activity and offering a $50,000 reward for information that leads to the recovery of these laptops. A data breach is a very expensive proposition.

Securing laptops, locking offices, and properly storing files is in the job description of each and every person on your bank's payroll, written there or not. Training may be done with humor, skits, or a Jack Webb like tone instilling that this is serious business. A theft like this asks questions on many levels, who had access, why, why were they left in the open, were the employees ever taught not to do this, does the bank provide locking cables to secure laptops and how serious are they about this now. I'd bet the attitude has changed in their branches. And so it should elsewhere because this could happen in almost any bank. It is like that old commercial said, "you can pay me now, or pay me later." This is an excellent lesson many of us can reflect on and see how we can do things better.