Employees in Philadelphia paid to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing allegedly compromised the private information of nearly 72,000 people, CBS Philadelphia reported Thursday.
The State Health Department spokesman Barry Ciccocioppo said information such as names and phone numbers, emails, genders, ages, sexual orientations, and COVID-19 diagnoses and exposure status were potentially released. Financial account information and Social Security numbers were not released, according to the report.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (@AP) _ Employees of a vendor paid to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing in Pennsylvania may have compromised the private information of at least 72,000 people, including their exposure status and their sexual orientation, the state Health Department said Thursday.
— Marc Levy (@timelywriter) April 29, 2021
The Department of Health had a contract with the staffing agency Insight Global to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing. The state Treasury Department said Insight Global had been paid nearly $28.7 million since March 2020, according to CBS.
Ciccocioppo said the agency “disregarded security protocols established in the contract and created unauthorized documents.”
“We are extremely dismayed that employees from Insight Global acted in a way that may have compromised this type of information and sincerely apologize to all impacted individuals,” the spokesman said.
Republican Pennsylvania State Rep. Kerry Benninghoff said the incident was “incredibly careless and [a] damaging breach of trust.” (RELATED: Data Breach At VA Could Compromise Personal Information Of 46,000 Veterans)
“This latest example of gross mismanagement by the Wolf administration speaks volumes to the dangers of unchecked, unilateral executive authority and why the people’s voice through their elected representatives and senators needs to be heard during challenging times,” Benninghoff said.
Insight Global has hired a third party to investigate the system breach further. The Pennsylvania state health department announced it would not renew the contract with the company that expires in three months, according to CBS.