Over 160,000 Wyoming Residents Medical Data Mistakenly Uploaded
A press release put out by the Wyoming Department of Health announced the mistaken exposure of lab test result data with the health information of over 160,000 Wyoming residents.
The department said they became aware of the exposure of approximately 164,021 Wyoming residents on March 10, 2021, with a workforce member mishandling health information as early as November 5, 2020.
Specifically, the leaked information includes 53 files containing COVID-19 and influenza test result data and one file containing breath alcohol test results, which were mistakenly uploaded to Github servers.
The COVID-19 and influenza test data includes names, addresses, date of birth, test results and dates of service anywhere between January 2020 and March 2021.
The files did not contain banking, financial or health insurance information, or social security numbers.
The information would have been available on GitHub’s public site as early as January 8, 2021.
According to the press release, Michael Ceballos, WDH director, said:
“We are taking this situation very seriously and extend a sincere apology to anyone affected. We are committed to being open about the situation and to offering our help,” Ceballos said.
In the press release, Jeri Hendricks, Office of Privacy, Security and Contracts administrator with WDH, said:
“Files have been removed from the GitHub repositories and GitHub has destroyed any dangling data from their servers," Hendricks said. "Business practices have been revised to include prohibiting the use of GitHub or other public repositories and employees have been retrained.”
A special WDH information line dedicated to the situation has been established at 1(833) 847-5916 and will be available until August 6, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.