San Diego Family Care Center Discloses Possible Data Breach


San Diego Family Care’s Linda Vista Health Center. Photo by Doug Gates

San Diego Family Care announced Friday it has alerted current and former patients and employees about a computer security breach that may have involved their personal information.

Though there is no evidence that anyone’s personal information was misused, the health services provider said it was advising potentially impacted people about the issue, and steps they can take to protect themselves, as a precaution.

The potentially affected data includes names; dates of birth; Social Security numbers or other government identifiers; financial account numbers; medical diagnosis or treatment information; health-insurance information; and client identification numbers, according to SDFC officials.

The issue came to light in December, when officials with SDFC and its business associate, Health Center Partners of Southern California, became aware that their information-technology hosting provider had experienced a data-security irregularity that resulted in the encryption of certain data.

In response, the technology company took steps to secure and restore its systems and launched an investigation with the assistance of computer forensics experts, who determined that some data may have been accessed by an unauthorized party.

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