Remember the Advanced Data Processing/Intermedix insider breach of 2012 where a rogue employee provided ambulance patient identity information to others involved in a tax refund fraud scheme? I had covered it on PHIprivacy.net (cf here and here for just two of the posts) and also on this site (cf, this post). In reporting on the breach, one of the things I noted was that although the breach was first disclosed in November 2012, some people were first being notified months and even years later. The most recent batch of notifications stemming from the breach appear to relate to Philadelphia EMS patients, According to media coverage, ADPI first notified Philadelphia in February, 2015 and it took until mid-April for the city to notify its affected residents. But why did it take so long for ADPI to determine that Philadelphia patients were impacted or to notify the city?
Yehonatan Weinberg, a Philadelphia resident who used the ambulance service during the critical period in 2012 and who subsequently became a victim of tax refund fraud, has now sued ADPI and Intermedix over the breach. The complaint, which uses HIPAA and NIST standards to argue what Intermedix should have (but allegedly didn’t) do, alleges negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and restitution/unjust enrichment.
In its early notification letters, ADPI/Intermedix offered a year of free credit monitoring services with Experian ProtectMyID. But what happened to people who became identity theft/fraud victims before Intermedix ever notified them? Did Intermedix then offer them identity theft restoration services? Intermedix has not responded to an email inquiry sent this afternoon. This post will be updated if they respond.
On August 5, one day after the complaint was filed in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, Judge Beth Bloom denied the motion for class certification as premature. As her order explains, the plaintiff’s fear that class certification might be mooted by a “buy off” offer from the defendant does not apply in the Eleventh Circuit as long as theplaintiff has not failed to diligently pursue class certification. The motion was denied without prejudice.
Elsewhere, and according to HHS’s public breach tool, HHS’s investigation into the breach appears still open.
Because FTC generally does not make its investigations public, it is not known whether they, too, may be investigating ADPI over this breach.