The City of Charlotte becomes the third entity to reveal that their data were on two DVDs lost by Towers Watson.
In April, DataBreaches.net reported that Lorillard Tobacco was notifying employees that their names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers were on two missing DVDs. General Agencies Welfare Benefits Program also reported that they had notified 1,874 employees, former employees, and family members that information provided to Towers Watson in 2001 were on the missing DVDs. The information included first and last names, health insurance plan numbers and/or the Social Security numbers of the covered employees. At the time, Towers Watson did not respond to a request from DataBreaches.net for a statement about the breach. And now we learn that the City of Charlotte was also impacted by the breach. DataBreaches.net has just sent Towers Watson another request, but so far, no response.
This is beginning to remind me of the Colt Express breach where a lot of old data were left unencrypted and a lot of entities were affected by what, in that case, was a burglary. If anyone knows of other entities affected by this Towers Watson incident, please let me know. In the meantime, Steve Lyttle reports on the City of Charlotte news:
Charlotte officials say personal data from about 5,200 current and former employees and elected officials has been lost.
[…]
The data loss affects those who were receiving health coverage from the city in early 2002, and the information was contained on two DVDs kept by Towers Watson, a company which handles the city’s payroll, health insurance and other human resources operations.
The DVDs contained Social Security numbers, health plan coverage numbers, and prescription information.
Read more in the Charlotte Observer.