Some UnitedHealthcare Customers Have Identities Stolen
UnitedHealthcare said 24 Idaho customers enrolled in its Medicare plans may have had their identities stolen.
?On Jan. 30, 2012, the company discovered that a former employee, during the course of his employment, may have accessed information in a database in a way that was inconsistent with his job duties,? the company said Friday.
The information included names, Social Security numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and Medicare Health Insurance Claim Numbers.
According to UnitedHealthcare?s investigation, the theft of information occurred between June 28 and Dec. 12, 2011.
On March 30, the company notified those it believed had their information stolen, though ?despite an exhaustive effort,? it has not been able to identify other customers affected. In an email to the station Friday afternoon, UnitedHealthcare said all customers affected in Idaho were notified.
The Minneapolis-based company is offering one free year of identity theft protection services to those affected. For more information, call (877) 298-2341.
This is not the first time UnitedHealthcare has dealt with a data breach. In 2008, a former UnitedHealthcare employee was charged in connection with more than 150 identity theft cases at University of California, Irvine. In that case, the suspect was accused of using graduate students’ information to file false tax returns, according to the university newsroom.
