The Texas Department of Insurance has confirmed a serious breach of data security. The result was that the personal information of Texas workers who have suffered the pain of an on the job injury now must deal with the indignity and insecurity of having their privacy compromised.
The Texas Tribune reported the audit findings:
The personal information of almost 2 million Texans who filed claims with the Texas Department of Insurance was exposed and publicly available for nearly three years, according to a state audit released last week.
The department said the personal information of 1.8 million workers who have filed compensation claims — including Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and information about workers’ injuries — was accessible online to members of the public from March 2019 to January 2022.
What is unclear is whether the information was actually accessed by any third party, and whether the access (if any) was malicious/nefarious or merely incidental.
It is also unclear whether this information also includes the personal identifying information of any other system participants, including attorneys and healthcare providers, who may have information stored in the system.
The state of Texas is generously providing credit monitoring to make up for the error.
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