Burlington Northern Santa Fe Group Benefits Plan

On October 27, 2014, the covered entity (CE), Burlington Northern Santa Fe Group Benefits Plan, reported a breach when a workforce member that was on a business trip lost an unsecured flash drive that contained employees’ protected health information (PHI). The flash drive contained the demographic and clinical information of 507 individuals. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. Following the incident, the CE sanctioned the workforce member, revised its policy limiting the ability of employees to transfer PHI to portable devices, installed encryption software, and retrained staff on its privacy and security policies. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed above.