Blood Donation Agency Alerts California Donors to Possible Identity Theft After Two Computers Are Stolen

In compliance with a new state law, United Blood Services last week sent letters to about 38,000 blood donors in California warning them to protect themselves against identity theft after two computers that contained donors' personal information were stolen from a Phoenix repair shop, the Ventura County Star reports. The computers contained databases that included names, addresses, dates of birth and social security numbers of people who donated blood at United Blood Services of Ventura County and other U.S. centers. The law requires companies to notify people if their personal information is accessed by unauthorized people, lost or stolen. UBS officials said that the databases have multiple layers of security and that the computers appear to have been taken for their hardware rather than for the donor information. UBS notified only donors whose Social Security numbers were in the database. Although UBS' parent group, Blood Systems, operates facilities in other states, only donors in California were notified (Klampe, Ventura County Star, 2/18).