Employees of a vendor paid to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing in Pennsylvania may have compromised the private information of at least 72,000 people, including their exposure status and their sexual orientation, the state Health Department said Thursday.
Workers at Atlanta-based Insight Global “disregarded security protocols established in the contract and created unauthorized documents” outside the state’s secure data system, Health Department spokesman Barry Ciccocioppo said.
“We are extremely dismayed that employees from Insight Global acted in a way that may have compromised this type of information and sincerely apologize to all impacted individuals,” Ciccocioppo said. He said state computer systems, including Pennsylvania’s contact tracing app, were not implicated.
Insight Global acknowledged it mishandled sensitive data and apologized. The company has been paid about $28.7 million since March 2020, according to the state Treasury Department.
Ciccocioppo said some of the records in question associated names with phone numbers, emails, genders, ages, sexual orientations and COVID-19 diagnoses and exposure status. They did not include financial account information, addresses or Social Security numbers, he said.
The company has been directed to secure the records and has hired third-party specialists to conduct a forensic examination.
The data breach was first reported Thursday by WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh, and state lawmakers were briefed on the problem Thursday morning.
House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre, called it an “incredibly careless and damaging breach of trust.”
“This latest example of gross mismanagement by the Wolf administration speaks volumes to the dangers of unchecked, unilateral executive authority and why the people’s voice through their elected representatives and senators needs to be heard during challenging times,” Benninghoff said.
He said the state’s agreement with Insight Global was not competitively bid. About 900 Insight Global ..
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