LANSING – The Department of Community Health announced Thursday that a flash drive containing health information on 2,595 clients of the Long Term Care Ombudsman’s Office had been stolen, potentially compromising the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of some of those people.
The drive and a laptop were stolen from an employee of the office overnight January 30. While the information on the laptop was encrypted, the flash drive was not, officials said.
“MDCH takes any potential breach of security with the utmost seriousness and sincerely regrets that this breach occurred,” Nick Lyon, Community Health chief deputy director, said. “We are working swiftly to notify any individuals who may have been impacted and with staff to tighten our security procedures going forward.”
The department was aware of the theft February 3, but did not announce it until Thursday because of the time needed to reconstruct the data on the drive.
In addition to the general announcement, the department is contacting all individuals whose data was on the drive, officials said.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
