The New York State Psychiatric Institute, a facility owned and operated by the New York State Office of Mental Health, has reported the following incident to HHS as impacting 21,880 research participants:
On June 17, 2016, New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) learned that, between April 28 and May 4, certain parts of our system were accessed by unauthorized individuals and digital information relating to research participants may have been accessed.
Digital information may have included names, addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers, email addresses, in some cases social security numbers, driver’s license or state identification numbers, school, county, and coded health-related information from interviews or questionnaires.
OMH is working with law enforcement and has hired a leading cyber-security contractor to conduct a forensic security investigation of NYSPI’s computer systems to better protect persons against future security issues. In addition, OMH is providing identity protection services from ID Experts at no charge for all participants in the next 12 months.
If you are a research participant, please call 1-888-283-6590 if you have any questions. NYSPI and OMH have established this special toll-free number to answer any questions participants in affected research studies may have.