An update to a case reported previously on this blog: Lea Tice Phillips, who had been employed by an unnamed Alabama state agency, was sentenced to 94 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $567,631 for her role in a tax refund fraud scheme. Phillips had pleaded guilty in May. Aha. Finally we know…
Category: Government Sector
Errors by both Sentry Life Insurance and the Department of Labor expose 401k participants’ information online
Sentry Life Insurance is a service provider for many companies’ 401k plans. In that capacity, they assist clients in the preparation of, and submission of, the plans’ Form 5500 to the Department of Labor. On July 2, Sentry discovered that some plans’ Form 5500 submissions to DOL contained an attachment with the individuals’ names, Social Security numbers,…
MN: Judge tosses data breach suit against state
Eric Roper reports: A federal judge has dismissed a series of class action claims against the state, relating to a former Department of Natural Resources employee who allegedly snooped into thousands of drivers license records. Lawsuits against the employee are not impacted by the dismissal. Nor, reports Roper, are the more than 20 lawsuits that have been…
MNsure employee responsible for e-mail attachment breach no longer employed at MNsure
The MNsure employee who erroneously attached a spread sheet with 1,587 insurance agents’ names and Social Security numbers to an e-mail to one insurance agent is no longer working for MNsure. The Associated Press’s coverage adds that the employee violated internal policy by storing unencrypted personal information about Minnesota insurance agents on a computer desktop. The agency…
Audit of State University of New York at Albany reveals to-be-surplussed devices certified as “clean” still contained PII
I periodically post audits from the NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office pertaining to data protection. A recently released audit of SUNY-Albany reminds us that we need to continue to be concerned about inadequately wiped devices or drives that are to be surplussed. The audit period covered January – May 2012, and during that time, SUNY-Albany…
PA: Investigation launched into missing N. Franklin records
Scott Beveridge reports: North Franklin Township police are investigating the disappearance of records from the township building, some of them dating back to 2008. Township supervising Chairman Alex Migyanko said it appears the records, including planning commission and personnel files, appear to have been stolen earlier this year. Read more on the Observer-Reporter.