Oregon Exchange Distributes Social Security Numbers, Personal Info
For some time, we’ve been talking about the dangers Obamacare poses to your personal information — medical history, birth dates, income, and even your Social Security number. In fact, leaks were happening in some places (Minnesota, for example) before the exchanges went live. Since the launch of the exchanges on October 1st, however, these types of privacy breaches have only gotten worse.
National Review Online reports on the latest scandal, this time out of Oregon:
Valarie Henderson, a 55-year-old from Salem, received other consumers’ information in the mail last week, including birth dates, income, and Social Security.
She had sent in her own 19-page application roughly a month ago—the website, which has suffered a series of technical setbacks, doesn’t allow users to apply through an online portal, so consumers must attempt to submit a paper application through the mail or fax. On Wednesday, she received a packet from the exchange which contained her information as well as the information of several other people.
“I felt sorry for these people,” Henderson told the Statesman Journal. “I haven’t even thought of all the repercussions.”
According to the Statesman Journal, a spokesperson for the exchange could not say whether or not this was an isolated incident or if other leaks had occurred.
*crickets*
