Christine O’Donnell reports that hundreds of dental records with patients’ addresses, insurance information, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and drivers license numbers were found in what appears to be a vacant building in Orange. Of concern, the building has broken windows and homeless people have been observed going in and out of it for a while now.
Fox11’s investigation reportedly found that a dentist named Patrick Le owns the building, and it is also his name that appears on the dental records. According to Fox, Dr. Le currently runs an office called Orange Art of Dentistry that’s located less than half a mile away from the building. Dr. Le’s website reveals that he is also involved in Brookhust McFadden Dental, Comfort Dental, and Riverside Dentistry. It is not clear whether the records found in the vacant building came from patients seen at any of these practices.
FOX 11 reports that they reached out to Le repeatedly, but he did not return their calls. The California State Dental Board did respond, however, and reportedly sent an inspector to the property.
It’s not clear to me from the reporting whether the police or state actually removed/secured the records or just left them there. I hope they removed them.
In related coverage, the Orange County Register reports that police are not investigating this matter because Le owns the building and is within his rights to store his possessions in it.