Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Kansas Department on Aging is in the process of sending letters to the 7,000 people in South Central Kansas that may have their private information in the hands of thieves.

Last Thursday, an employee of the department had a car window broken and several items were stolen outside of the Best Western in West Wichita.

"To date, the laptop, the flash drive, and the paper files that were stolen, have not been recovered. There's also no evidence to date that shows the information has been accessed or been misused," said Secretary Shawn Sullivan of the Department on Aging.

The files had personal and protected health information that belonged to 7,000 people in Sedgwick, Harvey, and Butler counties. Sullivan said only 100 of those people had social security numbers and birth dates included. Those customers have been contacted by his staff.

"Our staff immediately began notifying and calling the families and the customers that were affected with those 100 files. For the most part, they've all been very understanding, very appreciative that we notified them immediately," said Sullivan.

The stolen data and documents included full customer names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, Medicaid identification numbers, and telephone numbers. According to the agency, no banking, credit card, or driver license information was involved.

The 7,000 affected are advised to review all bills and check on credit reports.

"You want to know what's on your credit report. You want to see and recognize any changes or things that you don't understand. You can see what changes are happening in your credit report and make sure they're all accurate and up-to-date," said Clifton O'Neal, communications director for TransUnion.

Sullivan said their policy requires all staff members to never leave information unsecured.

"We we go through regular and frequent training sessions with them on that. Something they take, again, very seriously. So, we've doubled our efforts on that and provided retraining to all the staff that perform this type of work," said Sullivan.

If you have questions call 1-855-477-0395 or click here.