Illinois agencies mailed personal health information of 4,000 people to wrong addresses

The personal information of more than 4,000 people who were clients of two Illinois state agencies was inadvertently mailed to the wrong addresses.

The impacted individuals were clients of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) and the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS).

The leaked information, which included health insurance information, medical and financial information, and dates of birth, was addressed to the correct individual, but sent to the wrong addresses. Neither detailed medical information nor social security numbers were included in the mailings, state officials said in a statement. The agencies said that the risk of identity theft is low.

Between Feb. 9 and March 1, the personal data of 4,136 people was sent to the incorrect addresses.

The incident occurred when a "file received from the National Change of Address registry at the United States Postal Service was matched against an out-of-date HFS and IDHS client file by the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT). The resulting file was loaded into HFS' and IDHS' System of Record and wrongly changed the address of several HFS and IDHS customers," state officials said.

The error was discovered on March 1 and the correct addresses were immediately restored. The system has been reconfigured to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future, the agencies said.