Johns Hopkins worker, patient data lost

Backup tapes containing personal data on more than 135,000 Johns Hopkins patients, employees and retirees were lost by a contractor but are believed to have been destroyed, the hospital and university said Wednesday.

The missing tapes contained Social Security numbers and, in some cases, bank account information for current and former employees of Johns Hopkins University.

One tape contained the names, birth dates, mother's maiden names and other information for 83,000 Johns Hopkins Hospital patients, but no Social Security numbers, addresses or medical or financial information, according to an e-mail alert sent to patients by the university and the hospital.

"We regret this occurrence and emphasize that the best evidence to date is that the tape was not stolen, nor was any information on it misused," the alert to patients said.

Letters are also being sent to all affected Johns Hopkins University employees, current and former, and to all affected Johns Hopkins Hospital patients, except for the relatively few for whom addresses are not available, the statement said.

Johns Hopkins said reading the information on the tapes requires equipment not readily available, although it was not encrypted.

Eight tapes containing information on about 52,000 employees and one tape containing the patient information had been sent Dec. 21 to a contractor that makes backup copies of the data, but the facility did not return them, the university said.

The university said it became aware of the loss of the eight employee tapes on Jan. 18 and launched an investigation on Jan. 26 in which it discovered that the patient tape also was missing.

University spokesman Dennis O'Shea identified the contractor as Anacomp Inc., a San Diego company. The institutions have suspended shipments of data to the contractor, pending further review, the joint statement to patients said.

Anacomp said in a statement late Wednesday that a courier hired from another company mistakenly left the box at another stop, near a garbage bin.

"The overwhelming likelihood ... is that the box was collected as garbage within a matter of hours and incinerated later that evening," Anacomp said. "At no time do we believe the information on the tapes was accessed, and we are virtually certain that the tapes were destroyed."

The incident is the latest in a series of mishaps involving companies and other large organizations that have lost track of the personal data of their employees and customers.