Some 3,000 Warren County, Iowa, residents have been notified that their personal information may have been scattered by the wind in the aftermath of a December fire at a human services office.
Pat Penning, service area manager for the Department of Human Services region that includes Warren County, said it is unlikely the water-logged or burned records could be used for identity theft, but the state is treating the breach seriously.
“The chance that your information was improperly accessed is small, but we realize that you may want to take steps to be sure that your information is not used by another person,” she said, addressing the potentially affected residents. The sensitive documents were pages within client files — not complete files — and contained names, Social Security numbers, addresses and phone numbers.
The Dec. 4 blaze destroyed the county-owned human services office in Indianola. The cause of the blaze remains unknown.
Sensitive documents that were damaged beyond repair were supposed to be moved to a secure building and then shredded, according to a release issued by the state Human Services department. One container of damaged records was mistakenly moved back to the fire-ravaged building by a county maintenance worker and the records later blew away.
The error wasn’t discovered until March 14, when a neighbor contacted the department after finding records in her yard. Department officials searched the fields around the burned building and collected records.
The department said county officials have determined that the maintenance worker moved the container back to the fire-damage building in early February and tossed the fire debris on the floor in order to use the container for other cleanup work.
The department said it couldn’t ensure all the scattered documents were found, so all people with open or recently closed cases in Warren County were notified. The department also provided those people with instructions on how to respond to identity theft and offered to pay for a one-year enrollment in a credit-monitoring service.
The Warren County office is among 42 DHS offices that operate full time in Iowa. The office’s work was moved to a temporary location after the fire.
Topics Iowa
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
Exxon Is Hit With $726 Million Verdict Over Benzene and Cancer 
Swiss Re to Withdraw From Digital Insurer iptiQ, Reports Strong Q1 Net Income of $1.1B 
Auto Insurance Shopping ‘Hot,’ Consumers Switching ‘Sizzling’: LexisNexis 
High Court: E-Scooter Rider Hit by Car Not Eligible for No-Fault PIP Benefits 
