Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners

On September 21, 2016, the covered entity (CE), Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners, discovered that it had posted a file containing protected health information (PHI) on an external website accessible by potential vendors. The file contained the dates of birth, employee identification numbers, and dental plan coverage elections of 2,757 individuals. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In response to the breach, the CE altered its procedure for soliciting bids from vendors such that PHI is no longer involved. In addition, the CE retrained its workforce and sanctioned the responsible employee, who subsequently resigned from his employment with the CE. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed above.