Stolen SD card exposes personal data of 18,000 people in Canada

Region of Peel Canada announced breach of personal health information from its public health program of over 18,000 clients.

“Despite having practices and protocols in place to protect the privacy of our clients, we have had a breach of personal health information that affects more than 18,000 clients who participated in Peel Public Health’s Healthy Babies Healthy Children program,” first paragraph of the press statement reads.

An unencrypted SD card of one employee in the Health Services was accordingly stolen. The card contained the name, address, birth date/age, marital status and assessment information of clients who were in the program from March 2010 to August 2011 and small number from earlier dates.

“I want to reassure the public that this was an isolated incident. It is not standard or acceptable practice for us to put client information on unencrypted devices. As part of our investigation into this breach, we will be examining all of our privacy and protection protocols, and tightening controls on the information that has been entrusted to us,” Emil Kolb, Chair of The Region of Peel stated.