State officials are in the process of notifying some public assistance recipients that their personal data was accidentally released earlier this summer. The problem stems from a batch of letters sent to about 3,000 recipients of Medicaid and food and cash assistance programs that were accidentally mailed to the wrong households.
Around a third of those letters included people’s social security numbers. The rest had other personally identifying information, including potentially sensitive medical data.
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Colorado’s Office of Information Technology says the problem was the unintended consequence of an update to the computer system that manages benefits… and that they were able to fix it shortly after being alerted to the error.
Letters are going out this week to people whose social security number or medical information was released, offering them free credit monitoring. The independent contractor responsible for the mistake will pick up the tab.
