Pharmaceutical company Shire is notifying an unspecified number of individuals that their personal and medical information was on a laptop stolen from an employee’s car in Washington D.C.
The laptop, which was issued by Shire Human Genetic Therapies, Inc. was stolen on December 30th and its theft was reported to the police immediately.
Investigation into the incident revealed that the laptop contained name, address, date of birth, telephone number, last four digits of Social Security number, dates of treatment, description of medical condition, and the therapeutic drug the patient was using.
According to the notification letter signed by Perry Sternberg, Head of Neurosciences and Commercial Excellence, the information came from 2014 Shire records.
Those affected were offered one year of services with Kroll.
There is no mention of whether the employee was violating any policy by not having the data encrypted on the laptop or by leaving the laptop in a situation where it could be stolen.
A copy of the letter can be found on the Vermont Attorney General’s web site.
Shire did not respond by publication time to an inquiry as to how many patients were impacted, whether the employee violated any policies, and what Shire is doing to prevent a recurrence in the future.