Personal information, including the Social Security numbers of over 2,500 local veterans, may have been exposed by an employee at the V.A. Medical Center in Aiken. The revelation comes after a month-long investigation by WJBF News Channel 6.
Reporter Brett Buffington first asked officials at the Aiken office, and their parent, the Charlie Norwood V.A. Medical Center, in Augusta, about the incident over a month ago.
Friday, The V.A. finally admitted that appointment records for more than 2,600 veterans were thrown in the trash, instead of being shredded.
This means anyone could have retrieved that information from the dumpster and used it to create credit card accounts, checking accounts, or other kinds of loans.
In a statement released Friday, the Veterans Administration said:
"An internal investigation revealed that a stack of appointment lists, which included Veterans’ social security numbers and dates of birth, was improperly discarded in a regular trash bin instead of a bin designated for shredding. There is no indication that the information has been misused or stolen, and the waste collection process of CNVAMC, as explained by the company that handles trash collection for the medical center, suggests that the information is not accessible to anyone.
Although CNVAMC administrators believe the discarded documents only pertain to appointments held in January 2011, the actual number of Veterans could not be verified. Therefore, the medical center is sending letters to every Veteran who received care at the Aiken clinic from January 2010 through January 2011 to explain what occurred and to offer free credit monitoring services.
In addition, all CNVAMC employees have been required to review VA’s privacy procedures again, which include the proper disposal of documents containing Veterans’ personally identifiable information."
Acting Medical Center Director Patricia Pittman says, “We are reaching out to each Veteran who may have been impacted, and we’re taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future.”
Veterans who have questions or concerns about whether their personal information may have been improperly discarded are encouraged to call a special hotline established by the CNVAMC at (706) 729-5893.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement