Hard drive stolen from Jackson Memorial Hospital
A hard drive containing the personal information of hundreds of thousands of patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida has been stolen.How many victims? 200,000.
What type of personal information? Copies of the drivers' licenses of patients who visited the hospital May 2007 through March 2008. No Social Security numbers or financial information was on the hard drive, Dennis Proul, the hospital's chief information officer told the Miami Herald.
What happened? The hard drive was stolen from the hospital's data center, which is secured by cyberlocks and swipe cards. Several dozen people have access to the center, Proul said.
Details: The hard drive was discovered missing Feb. 11 and reported to the police on March 4. The hospital does not have a back-up copy of the information so they do not know which patients were affected.
What was the response? Visitor information is now erased every 30 days. The hospital recommended individuals who visited Jackson from May 2007 through March 2008 notify one of three credit bureaus and place fraud alerts.
Quote: ''We're very sorry this happened and are taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen again,'' Proul said.
Source: Miamiherald.com, Miami Herald, “Disk with information on 200,000 visitors to Jackson hospital stolen,” March 21, 2009.
