HARRISBURG, Pa. — Officials with the Pennsylvania Department of Health were a no-show to a State Senate hearing Tuesday morning on the massive contact tracing data breach. Lawmakers are looking for answers into a data breach that exposed personal and health information of 72,000 Pennsylvanians.
The unsecured information was collected by employees of Insight Global –the company awarded a nearly $30 million contract to perform contact tracing in the state.
“The governor entrusted this information to a third party contractor. We’re not even sure how that contractor vetted its employees, what background checks were done, how that data was handled, where it went,” said Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, a republican who represents part of York County.
The Department of Health initially agreed to testify at the Senate Communications and Technology Committee hearing. Officials backed out late last week after a class action lawsuit was filed in federal court.
“Once a lawsuit against the department was filed, we were unable to accept the invitation because we do not comment on matters relating to pending litigation,” Maggi Barton, Deputy Press Secretary for the DOH, said in an email to FOX43.
According to the lawsuit, DOH officials knew about the data breach since February 2021, but did nothing until April. The lawsuit accuses the DOH and Insight Global of failing to protect sensitive health information. State lawmakers said they will take every measure to uncover what happened.
“And that includes issuing subpoenas if we are unable to get the answers that the people of Pennsylvania deserve,” Senator Phillips-Hill said.
The Department of Health is requiring Insight Global to notify all impacted individuals. A call center will open Friday, April 30 at 1:00 p.m. for anyone concerned that their information might have been subject to the security incident. The hotline —1-855-535-1787 — will then be staffed Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.