In the race against the machines the machines are winning

by: Henry Meier

If today’s blog has a theme it’s how technology is continuing to evolve much quicker than our ability to properly regulate it.

Anthem breach likely to produce nervous members

Anthem Health Insurance disclosed yesterday that personal information involving tens of millions of customers have been compromised,  According to a company press release,  hackers gained   unauthorized access to  personal information from  current and former members such as their names, birthdays, medical IDs/social security numbers, street addresses, email addresses and employment information, including income data.  However  the company has no evidence that “ credit card or medical information, such as claims, test results or diagnostic codes were targeted or compromised. ”Although the exact number of compromised records isn’t known the WSJ is reporting that the hackers gained access to data bases containing information on  about 80 million customers.

Obviously expect calls from nervous members today wondering if they have been victimized by identity theft.  The good news is that since Anthem decided to quickly disclose the breach the public may be better positioned than usual to prevent data thieves  from taking full  advantage of this treasure trove  of personal data. Remember that under New York Law consumers may request that credit reporting agencies place a freeze on access to their credit reports. N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 380-t (McKinney).

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