Personal info on about 650,000 customers of J.C. Penney and up to 100 other retailers could be compromised after a computer tape went lost. GE Money, which handles credit-card operations for Penney and many other retailers, said Thursday night that the lost knowledge includes Social safety measure numbers for about 150,000 public.

The info was on a backup computer tape that was discovered lost last October. It was being stored at a warehouse run by Iron Mountain Inc., a data-storage company, and was never checked out but can’t be found, either, said Richard C. Jones, a spokesman for GE Money, part of General Electric Capital Corp.

Jones said there was “no indication of theft or anything of that sort,” and no evidence of phoney activity on the accounts involved.

Iron Mountain spokesman Dan O’Neill said it would take specialized skills for someone to glean the personal details from the tape. He said the company regretted losing the tape, “but considering of

the volume of data we handle and the fact society are involved, we have occasionally made mistakes.”

Penney said it had been told of the situation and referred further inquiries to GE Money.

Jones declined to identify the other retailers whose customers’ knowledge is lost but said “it includes many of the large retail organizations.”

Jones said GE Money is paying for 12 months of credit-monitoring service for customers whose Social safety measure numbers were on the tape.

Incidents like that add to consumer concern about hoax. The Identity Theft Resource Center says there was a sixfold increase last year in the number of records reported compromised in the United States — to 125 million.

input breaches can stem from hacking, as well as the physical loss or theft of computers smf data-storage equipment.

TJX Cos., owner of the T.J. Maxx and Marshalls retail chains, reported last year that tens…

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