4. To what extent could this data breach have been prevented? In April 2010, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island

(BCBSRI) announced that personal information belonging to approximately 12,000 BlueCHiP for Medicare members was inadvertently contained in a filing cabinet donated with other surplus office furniture to a local nonprofit organization.

The filing cabinet contained BlueCHiP for Medicare Health Surveys, which included names, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, Medicare identification numbers, and medical information.