Fergie's Tech Blog

Tennessee Hospital Employees' Names, Identification Lost

Emily Berry writes in the Chattanooga Times Free Press Online:

Thousands of Erlanger hospital employees’ names and personal identifying information stored electronically disappeared from a locked office on Sept. 15, and employees are hearing about the loss in letters sent to their homes this weekend, hospital officials said.

“We did our own investigation of the incident,” Erlanger officials said. “We needed to determine who was affected and who was not affected. Within 24 hours of determining who they were, we got the letters out.”

According to the letters, sent Friday afternoon to about 4,150 current and former employees thought to be affected and about 2,050 current employees who were not, the names and accompanying personal information were stored on a USB storage device, also known as a “jump drive.”

The database information was limited to names and Social Security numbers, Erlanger officials said.

posted by Fergie @ 9/25/2006 10:29:00 AM