The Longmont, CO Daily Times reported December 14 that a nurse’s laptop was stolen from her car whle she was parked at a restaurant, along with paper records containing personally identifiable information (PII): “students‚Äô names and dates of birth; the names of their schools and what grade they are in; the students‚Äô Medicaid numbers; and their parents‚Äô names.”
Reportedly no PII was stored on the laptop:
“No information was on the computer’s hard drive because the laptop was used only to access the school’s computer network, Poynton said. The district’s information technology staff was able to access the laptop remotely and change its password, so that information should be protected, he said.”
This demonstrates an example of the threats that exist for PII in all forms. Significant breaches can occur as a result of fraudsters and other criminals getting papers with printed PII. Dumpster diving, trash and mail stealing, and other “low-tech” PII thefts still occur quite frequently. This particular sitution probably was not targeted at the printed pages since they were inside the laptop case. However, the PII is still in the hands of criminals and at risk.
Tags: awareness and training, data protection, health data privacy, Information Security, IT compliance, laptop theft, personal data breach, policies and procedures, privacy, privacy breach