These are the biggest private health info breaches in New Jersey

🖥 Over 1M NJ people impacted by breaches

🔓 Public institutions among over 30 separate incidents probed

📤 Social Security numbers and dates of birth among breached data

With most files being handled digitally these days, the risk of data breaches has become all but unavoidable.

In just the past two years, more than 30 health and personal data breaches impacting NJ residents have been under federal investigation.

Among the biggest reported breaches were several involving public institutions.

Information made vulnerable included patients’ names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, health insurance details and medical record numbers.

🔓 Bridgewater-Raritan school district data breach

In February, about 3,900 employees of Bridgewater-Raritan schools were impacted when their private information was made vulnerable when the school district’s health insurance coverage information was hacked.

Names and social security numbers of district employees and others enrolled in the district's insurance plan were among data exposed.

🔓 NJ Department of Human Services data breaches

The state Department of Human Services made the breach list several times.

Most recently, in May in a situation that impacted about 500 people. In fall 2022, a separate data breach impacted about 3,900 individuals.

🔓 University Hospital data breaches

University Hospital also has seen its data compromised more than once - impacting more than 9,000 people in October — and then more than 10,000 people just a month later.

In the first incident — the hospital discovered that a now-former employee might have accessed and provided patient information to unauthorized individuals between 2016 and 2017.

Those vulnerable were patients treated in the emergency department following motor vehicle accidents. They were offered free credit monitoring and ID protection membership for a year.

Roughly a month later, University Hospital confirmed a similar breach, also involving personal data of people involved in traffic accidents from 2018 to 2019, as reported by the HIPPA Journal.

🔓 NJ state psychiatric hospitals data breaches

In June 2022, Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and Ann Klein Forensic Center received notification of an apparent hacking of a third-party vendor, which provides medical translation and dictation services to state psychiatric hospitals.

An unauthorized individual gained limited access to protected health records of certain current and former patients of the hospitals.

Full data breach information involving NJ, that goes back two years, is here.

Report a correction 👈 | 👉 Contact our newsroom