They've made life easier for a lot of people, but laptop computers have also made it easier for someone else to steal your identity.

Just this week, more than 2–thousand American Family Insurance customers in the Madison area got a disturbing letter in the mail.
A laptop computer containing their social security numbers and drivers' license numbers was stolen from their agent's office.

The computer was taken from Ed Flynn's office on Jupiter Drive.
The burglary happened in July, but American Family didn't notify customers until now.

Spokesman Steve Witmer says quote "It took the company a while to determine the contents of the missing computer...once we made that determination, we started moving forward to notify Ed's customers."
Witmer says there is no indication at this time that any of the stolen information has been misused.

Laptop computers are everywhere these days.

"We're almost selling more laptop computers than we are desktop computers," says Brian Lisse of Madison Computer Works.

"It's pretty much up to the end user to be smart about it. It's pretty obvious that it can get stolen," he adds.

But Lisse says there are ways to protect what's stored on your hard–drive.

"There's a Computrace program out there that goes on the boot drive of your hard drive and the second it gets stolen and they log on to the Internet it goes to a service that notifies the police and they'll be knocking at your door," says Lisse.

The program costs about 50–dollars a year. Some newer laptops allow you to set what's called a boot-up password. As soon as your computer turns on you must enter that password in order to start your operating system.

"I try to be more careful than I have been," says UW law student Michael Klein.

Where ever Michael goes, his laptop is sure to follow. Sometime he admits he leaves it unattended.

"Especially in the library, people leave them for a few minutes," says Klein.

Lisse says the only guaranteed way to keep your personal information private is to keep it out of your computer.

"Truth of the matter is if I come up with a way to prevent people from getting my information, someone who wants it is going to find a way to get around it," says Lisse.

Again, we want to stress that there are no reports that the stolen information from American Family has been misused.

This incident has prompted the insurance company to review the way it stores costumer information.