CHARLOTTE — Nearly 80 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools employees are being warned to guard against identity theft after files containing their personal data were stolen from a human resource employee's car.

A system spokeswoman said the personnel files were stolen Nov. 28 when the HR employee stopped for lunch. Spokeswoman Tahira Stalberte said an investigation determined that the employee did nothing wrong.

Stalberte said the files contained names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and driver's license numbers. She said the affected employees, who work in the transportation department, got a letter notifying them on Dec. 3.

Stalberte also said the system is providing one year of free Equifax credit and ID monitoring to the employees whose data was stolen, at a total cost of about $8,000.