Johns Hopkins alerts patients, employees, retirees to data loss

Backup tapes with personal data on more than 135,000 Johns Hopkins patients, employees and retirees were lost by a contractor and are believed to have been destroyed, the hospital and university said Wednesday.

The Johns Hopkins Hospital patient information on one missing tape included names and limited information such as sex and date of birth, but did not contain medical information, Social Security numbers, addresses or financial information, patients were told in an e-mail alert.

However, information on eight missing Johns Hopkins University payroll tapes included Social Security numbers and, in some cases, bank account information for current and former employees. The tapes included information on retirees and students who have held campus jobs and involves employees from all university units except the Applied Physics Laboratory, the hospital and university said in a joint statement.