A health system based in Northern California, Sutter Health, announced a breach safety that put the patient's personal information in danger of the possible identity theft. Sutter issued a public notice said the police found the protected health information while conducting an investigation unrelated. The Sacramento Business Journal reported that the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies found the information during a drug bust in Oakland, CA.
He does not know how the information was leaked and that the information has been included in the protected health information found, personal information but it could have included such as the full name of the patient, sex, social security number, birth date, telephone number, marital status, address, employer's name and phone number work.
To protect the identity of their patients, Sutter contacted all potentially exposed patients and provided patients with free one-year membership to ProtectMyID.com by Experian.
What can you do if this or something like this happens to you?
We found the Sutter response to this situation to be a generous act, unfortunately not all systems or health companies offer such a proactive solution so it is important to know what to do . The most active way to protect your identity after your information has been exposed is to register for a protection service against identity theft. These services monitor the use of your personal information and your credit reports and alert you when they notice something suspicious or unusual use of your information. Besides active monitoring of your personal information, these services also provide you with support throughout the restoration process if you are victim of identity theft.
Both identity of the best service flights protection - Identity Guard and TrustedID - even offer free trials that allow you to test the service before making a financial commitment. Check out this blog to find out why identity theft protection services are useful for or visit our graphic identity theft compare to see a breakdown of what each service offers.