Breach, Data Security

Wisconsin health insurer loses hard drive, 41K members impacted

About 41,000 members of Wisconsin-based Unity Health Insurance are being notified that their personal information may be at risk after a portable hard drive was reported missing from the University of Wisconsin-School of Pharmacy.

How many victims? 41,437.  

What type of personal information? Unity member numbers, dates of birth, cities of residence, names of prescribed drugs, and dates of service, if any.

What happened? A portable hard drive containing the information was reported missing from the University of Wisconsin-School of Pharmacy.

What was the response? An investigation by police is ongoing. Unity and the School of Pharmacy are reviewing breach policies and retraining employees on protecting information. Unity began alerting affected members on Jan. 29 and is offering them one free year of identity theft protection services.

Details: The hard drive was reported missing from the School of Pharmacy on Dec. 12. The School of Pharmacy had the information as part of a benefits program evaluation.

Quote: “We have no reason to believe the hard drive was stolen to gain access to member information or that this information has been accessed or misused in any way,” according to a disclosure notice posted to the Unity website.

Source: unityhealth.com, “Unity Health Insurance Disclosure Notice,” Jan. 29, 2014.

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