Yukon residents affected by LifeLabs health info breach

Yukon's information and privacy commissioner, Diane McLeod-McKay, says as many as 2,900 Yukon residents could be affected by a massive privacy breach at Canadian lab testing firm LifeLabs.

In a letter to customers published Tuesday, the company says it identified a cyber attack that breached the company's computer system. The contact information, login information, health insurance numbers and lab test results of as many as 15 million patients were exposed during the breach.

The company did not say when the breach took place. Most of the patients affected are in Ontario and British Columbia, but Yukoners frequently travel to B.C. to access healthcare services not available in the territory.

McLeod-McKay said as many as 2,900 Yukoners could have been accessed by hackers. Information of 34 Yukoners was recovered from the hackers, she said.

"It's very concerning because the information can be used to cause harm to individuals including identity fraud identity theft," she said.

"What concerns me more is that the access to the personal health number creates risk to individuals that others may actually use that number to acquire services," she said. "That information could possibly end up on their health care record which could have significant impacts."

These breaches are continually occurring and there really are no consequences.-Diane McLeod-McKay,Yukon's information and privacy commissioner

McLeod-McKay said her office has not yet been informed about the identities of Yukoners caught up in the data breach. She also said it's not clear whether the data breach is limited to Yukonerswho received treatment in B.C.

The commissioner said she has been in contact with Yukon Health and Social Services and the Yukon Hospital Corporation. McLeod-McKay said she is investigating whether the breach violated Yukon's health privacy laws.

Nobody from either the health department or the hospital corporation were immediately available to comment.

She urged residents who are concerned about their health information to contact LifeLabsto determine whether they're affected by the breach.

LifeLabs said it's offering one year of identity theft insurance and dark web monitoring to customers.

McLeod-McKay said the incident underscores the need for tougher penalties for companies involved in privacy breaches.

"These breaches are continually occurring and there really are no consequences for organizations to comply," she said. "So the risk to individuals can be significant and the kind of information that we have breached in this case is quite significant."