United Methodist Homes, Notice of Data Privacy Event

BINGHAMTON, N.Y., Sept. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 13, 2018, United Methodist Homes discovered that an employee emailed a spreadsheet to his personal email address with information relating to current and former residents of Elizabeth Church and Hilltop campuses. That information was limited to the resident's name and internal medical identification number, and the name, address, phone number, and relationship to their contact person. United Methodist Homes spoke to the employee and observed him permanently delete the email from his personal email account.  The employee is no longer employed by United Methodist Homes.  United Methodist Homes has no evidence of any actual or attempted misuse of information as a result of this incident. 

On August 31, 2018, United Methodist Homes mailed notice letters to individuals whose information was contained within the email and for whom they had a postal address.  United Methodist Homes has offered potentially impacted individuals access to credit monitoring and identity theft protection services for one year without charge.

United Methodist Homes encourages potentially impacted individuals to remain vigilant against incidents of identity theft and fraud, to review account statements, and to monitor their credit reports and explanation of benefits forms for suspicious activity. United Methodist Homes is providing potentially impacted individuals with contact information for the three major credit reporting agencies, as well as providing advice on how to obtain free credit reports and how to place fraud alerts and security freezes on their credit files.  The relevant contact information is below:

Potentially impacted individuals may also find information regarding identity theft, fraud alerts, security freezes and the steps they may take to protect their information by contacting the credit bureaus, the Federal Trade Commission or their state Attorney General. The Federal Trade Commission can be reached at: 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC  20580; www.identitytheft.gov; 1-877-ID-THEFT (1-877-438-4338); and TTY: 1-866-653-4261.

United Methodist Homes has set up a call center to answer questions from those who may have been impacted by this incident.  The call center can be reached at 877-890-9332 (toll free), Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET

Additional information on how potentially impacted individuals can protect themselves can also be found at United Methodist Homes' website https://www.unitedmethodisthomes.org/. Instances of known or suspected identity theft should also be reported to law enforcement or the individual's state Attorney General. 

SOURCE United Methodist Homes

Related Links

https://www.unitedmethodisthomes.org