Passport applicants warned of breach

WASHINGTON - The State Department said yesterday that it has notified nearly 400 passport applicants of a security breach in its records system that may have left them open to identity theft.

The department has so far told 383 people - most of them in the Washington, D.C., area - that their passport applications containing personal information, including Social Security numbers, may have been illegally reviewed and used to open fraudulent credit card accounts, spokesman Sean McCormack said.

More may be notified as an investigation continues, he said, adding that most of those contacted had not been victimized by identity thieves. All have been offered free credit monitoring for a year.