Fergie's Tech Blog

Johns Hopkins University Alerts 135,000 Employees, Patients to Data Loss

Tricia Bishop writes in The Baltimore Sun:

Backup computer tapes containing sensitive payroll and personal information on thousands of Johns Hopkins University employees, and basic information for even more hospital patients, have been missing for more than six weeks, officials announced today, causing concerns over identity theft.

Officials stressed that there was no patient medical information on these tapes.

Eight university tapes, routinely sent to a contractor who makes microfiche archives of the data, held Social Security numbers, addresses and direct-deposit bank account information for 52,567 former and current employees. A separate tape from the hospital contained names, dates of birth, sex, race and medical record numbers for 83,000 new hospital patients first seen between July 4 and Dec. 18, 2006, or those who updated their information during that period.

Hopkins officials said an "intensive investigation" by their staff as well as that of the contractor, Anacomp Company Inc., suggests that the tapes were likely misplaced by a courier, collected as trash and incinerated.

posted by Fergie @ 2/07/2007 11:36:00 AM