BOISE, Idaho – Approximately 1,000 current and former Saint Alphonsus employees are being notified that a computer back-up tape containing their personal information has gone missing.
Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center and its parent company Trinity Health have learned that a computer backup tape created by the consulting firm Mercer was lost in transit to a Mercer storage facility sometime between March 26 and March 29, 2010.
Mercer said that the missing tape contains the personal information for associates of several companies, including St. Al’s employees who were covered by some of the hospital’s medical plans between 2004 and 2006. The personal information that is missing includes names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers.
Trinity Health and Saint Alphonsus were notified of the missing tape on June 22. Mercer said the delay was caused by their need to reconstruct the tape and determine what date had been lost and who was affected.
Mercer said it does not believe the tape or the information on it has been inappropriately accessed or misused in any way, and that the risk of that occurring in the future is extremely low since the tape is not a readily accessible type of storage medium. They also said the tape could only be read by a specific type of system and that even if someone were able to access it, it would be unlikely that they would have the resources necessary to utilize the found data.
This is not the first time Treasure Valley residents have been notified of a missing Mercer data tape. On July 20, thousands of other employees, including many at St. Luke’s, were also notified of another missing data tape with their personal information.
Mercer is offering a free service for employees to access their credit report and to obtain identity theft consultation. Mercer also said it has taken steps to strengthen security measures and prevent another incident from occurring.
Trinity Health and Saint Alphonsus have offered an apology to their employees for any inconvenience the data loss may cause.
