Incident: Another mailing label incident

Kaiser Permanente, a large US-based health management organization, is asking its members to destroy the mailing labels used on their latest magazine to its members. An error of some sort meant that the plan member numbers were printed on the labels, perhaps contrary to the US health privacy law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). See: Rocky Mountain News: Business.

Since old magazines often end up in laundromats and hospital waiting rooms, an incident such as this probably presents a greater risk than printing such information on envelopes for other kinds of mailings.