If you’re a member with Kaiser Permanente, you might want to pay attention to this. Recently, a laptop has been stolen which contains information on over 22,000 of Kaiser’s patients. Fortunately, a majority of the information contained on patients was pretty limited, but there were 500 social security numbers on there as well.

And of course, the laptop was not encrypted. So now Kaiser is making a policy in regards to encrypting their laptops…

n yet another instance of laptop theft potentially endangering personal data, Kaiser Permanente is in the process of notifying as many as 22,000 patients of a possible breach of their private medical information.

The personal information was located on a doctor’s laptop computer stolen from the Medical Center in Oakland at the end of last November.

There were no details provided about where or how the laptop was taken, but a Kaiser spokesman said it was likely a random and isolated crime of opportunity.

Kaiser said the majority of patients had only limited information listed on the laptop, but 500 of them included social security numbers.[more]

Tags: Identity Theft