Brian Meyer and Jay Rey report that the city of Buffalo is scrambling in the aftermath of a CBS report that confidential data was found on copier hard drives that were up for sale at a warehouse:
Stored on one of the hard drives were details involving domestic-violence complaints along with a list of wanted sex offenders.
Another computer contained a list of targets from a drug raid three years earlier.
It raises the question: How many old copy machines that contain potentially sensitive information from city offices might be in circulation?
Read more in the Buffalo News.
The same investigative report had revealed that Affinity Health Plan had also left confidential information on its copier hard drive. Affinity Health Plan subsequently notified NYS that over 409,000 individuals were notified of the breach.
At least one person in Buffalo seems to be raising the question as to who is responsible for knowing that copiers have hard drives:
Common Council President David A. Franczyk said he wants answers, too.
“The question is, ‘Did the vendor make it plain whether those hard drives were there?’ That is unclear to me,” Franczyk said.
On a positive note, CBS’s investigation is getting picked up in the mainstream media and may help increase awareness of the need to scrub copier hard drives before disposing of them or otherwise getting rid of them.