BATON ROUGE, La. - Three Louisiana state agencies were notified by JP Morgan Chase Wednesday that a data breach may have exposed the personal information of some Louisiana citizens, Division of Administration Commissioner Kristy Nichols said.
The Louisiana Department of Revenue, the Louisiana Workforce Commission, and the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services were told that hackers had penetrated Chase's computer security systems. Chase officials said the breach is not isolated to Louisiana.
About 6,000 Louisiana recipients of pre-loaded debit cards used by LDR to distribute state income tax refunds could have been compromised, as well as about 5,300 child support debit cardholders and about 2,200 Louisianans receiving unemployment benefits via a Chase debit card.
According to the bank, the data exposure affects cardholders who registered their cards on the Chase UCard Center website and, between July and September 2013, performed certain actions online. Chase is notifying affected cardholders by email of the specific way their information was compromised.
Chase said there's no evidence that the information has been used fraudulently, and they continue to monitor the security status for all cardholders.
An investigation into the cause of the security violation is ongoing.
"We will be working with law enforcement officials as this investigation continues," said Nichols. "We will hold JP Morgan Chase responsible to make certain that the rights and personal privacy of these Louisiana citizens is protected."