Insurance giant American International Group (A.I.G.) announced yesterday that computer equipment was stolen last March from one of its Midwest offices. The computer contained personal information on 930,000 people.
The information was from employees of companies seeking corporate health insurance As far as A.I.G. knows, none of the information had been put to use in any way to date.
The data had been on a computer server and protected by a password. It consisted of names and Social Security numbers and, in some cases, fragments of medical information. Names and SS numbers were sometimes linked together. A.I.G. had received the information from 690 insurance brokers seeking quotes for coverage on health insurance for employees of companies across the country.
An A.I.G. spokesperson said the company had a copy of the stolen information and has been trying since the break-in to connect the names with addresses so it could notify people that their data had been taken. Letters to the 930,000 will go out in the next week. A.I.G. will also open a phone center to respond to questions.
1. This is just the beginning! Since the UCSF blackmail attempt by an overaseas disgruntled transcriptionist working for an outsourced company and now with medical tourism up and running hard protected health information is anything but protected. CPOE and PACS have been around but has doctors become mobile and internationalized increasingly threats of attempts to blackmail consumers of health care providers are only going to be more likely. Physical displacement of equipment is child's play compared to what is looming unless technology somewhere finds ways to keep that information out in the open but not out in the open.
Posted at 9:31PM on Jun 16th 2006 by Jody Uppal, MD