An important letter from Tricare could be arriving at our home in the next six weeks. It would notify us that our personal/medical information was on tapes stolen from a vehicle in September 2011. Affected patients in up to ten states will receive such a letter concerning the theft, which occurred in San Antonio, Texas. But that’s not all.
Military families are demanding accountability from the Department of Defense (DoD) and Tricare in the form of a class action lawsuit. There are four named plaintiffs and the 4.9 million Tricare beneficiaries with stolen data are also included.
It just boggles my mind that personal and medical information was handled this way. After all, the DoD finally took the threat to our identity seriously and discontinued the printing of social security numbers on military identification cards. That move seemed to take forever to get approved and implemented, but we’re all better off for it.
This incident has now put them back in the personal data protection hot seat. Procedures either weren’t in place, or the defense contractor employee chose to eschew them for whatever reason.
If you received care in San Antonio from 1992-2011 please keep an eye on your credit reports, letter or no letter.
Would you take on the Department of Defense in court? Is this incident best addressed in the legal realm?
