The University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics is warning around 2.2-million patients that they are at risk of having their identities stolen after backup tapes of their billing records were stolen from a car last week. The car was owned by a driver for a storage company.
The billing records contained patient names, demographic data, and diagnostic information. About 1.3-million records contained Social Security numbers. The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service are investigating the theft. The University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics is offering a $1,000 reward for the return of the tapes.
This is the second huge security breach this year involving the theft of patient backup tapes, according to Adam Dodge, who runs the blog Educational Security Incidents. In March tapes containing personal data on 2.1-million University of Miami patients were stolen from a van.—Andrea L. Foster
