Credit issuer says data lost for 650,000 customers

ATLANTA (Reuters) - A computer tape containing personal data of 650,000 customers of about 230 retailers including J.C. Penney Co is missing, credit card issuer GE Money said on Friday.

Richard Jones, a spokesman for the General Electric Co unit, said a backup computer tape being stored at a facility operated by Iron Mountain Inc, an information protection and storage company, had been lost.

Jones added that Social Security numbers of about 150,000 people were also included on the tape.

The GE Money spokesman declined to name other retailers whose customers could be affected. "It's many of the large national retailers as well as some smaller regional ones," Jones said.

In a statement, Iron Mountain said it notified GE Money of the missing tape in October, and added that there has been no evidence suggesting that the identity of any person had been compromised.

"We believe this is an unfortunate case of a misplaced tape," Iron Mountain's statement said. "We also understand the tape was created in such a manner to make unauthorized access extremely unlikely and difficult, even for experts with specialized knowledge and technology."

Jones said affected consumers, who include some GE Money employees, were being notified by letter of the missing tape.

Individuals whose Social Security numbers were on the tape are being offered free credit monitoring services for 12 months, Jones added.

(Reporting by Karen Jacobs; Editing by Brian Moss)