CBC News reports that five laptops were stolen from the Edmonton offices of Alberta Health Services on the evening of January 25.
Alberta Health Services confirmed the theft but did not say what information was on the devices.
Police say no arrests have been made and the laptops have yet to be recovered.
All AHS would say is that the laptops were “password-protected.”
Global News reports that:
AHS would not say whether there was any concern about patient information being accessed. It said, because this is an ongoing police matter, it could not comment further.
That’s either a convenient excuse or they’re concerned that the thieves will realize that there’s personal information on the laptops. Either way, this is not good.
I really hope to hell that there was no PII or PHI on these laptops as AHS has already experienced significant breaches involving stolen laptops holding unencrypted patient information.
Update: AHS issued an update on Feb. 5 saying that there was no patient data on the stolen laptops. Whew!