DHHS sells a cabinet containing personal information

It was just a few weeks ago that the state Department of Health and Human Services had to apologize after a laptop with tens of thousands of unsecured Social Security numbers was stolen from an employee.

It turns out the agency's paper records weren't much safer.

The state sold as surplus a file cabinet from the Caswell Developmental Center, a state facility in Kinston for people with mental retardation, to a buyer from Aberdeen on Oct. 9. The cabinet came with something extra -- 57 client files still in it.

The buyer notified the state of his find Oct. 30, and the state retrieved the files that day, said Mark Van Sciver, a spokesman for the agency.

Twenty of the files have been reviewed so far, Van Sciver said. Two had personal information, and one had a client's Medicaid number. The records were dated from 1989 to 1994.

The files were from a clinic that catered to people who needed special tools to help them communicate, Van Sciver said.

"The office had been moved a couple of times," Van Sciver said. "Everyone connected to the files is no longer there. At some point, the file cabinets ended up in the surplus areas. Quite frankly, they should have been checked."

The agency will decide whether people whose information was accidentally sold with the cabinets will be told, Van Sciver said.