The Utah Department of Corrections has temporarily suspended a data-entry program that employed inmates, after Grantsville's mayor received a letter claiming prisoners had compromised city employees' personal information.
The letter was sent in April by an inmate who did some of the data entry. However, corrections officials have since determined the inmate sent the letter to retaliate for being fired from his job.
Grantsville contracted with the Utah State Prison to have records compiled onto CDs. After receiving the letter, city recorder Wendy Palmer said the mayor had a letter sent out to city employees.
"After we met with the prison, we sent out a follow-up letter to all of the current employees and all employees from 1960 forward, letting them know that we had a letter from an inmate that claimed their information could have been compromised," she said Wednesday. "We included information on how to check for fraud."
Newly appointed corrections director Tom Patterson pulled the plug on the program Tuesday. He was out of town and did not return calls from the Deseret Morning News seeking comment on Wednesday. Attempts to reach Grantsville Mayor Byron Anderson were also unsuccessful.
Palmer said to her knowledge, no Grantsville city employee has reported any identity theft or fraud. She refused to release the letter from the inmate or the letter sent to city employees.
The program's biggest client is not overly concerned about any compromised personal data. The Utah Department of Health has used the prison's data entry program for the past 18 years for the state's Medicaid program, spokeswoman Charla Haley said.
"We haven't had any problems the whole time we've worked with the program," she said.
Inmates input Medicaid clients' personal data, but no one person has access to the entire record, Haley said. Rather, the confidential information — Social Security numbers, dates of birth, etc. — is divided among workers. Putting the information together to form an entire record that could be used for identity theft would be almost impossible, she said.
About 65 inmates are hired to do data entry and paid about 40 cents an hour.
Haley wasn't sure Wednesday whether the health department would immediately begin to look for a new data entry service or wait for corrections officials to decide what to do with the prison's program.
Palmer told the Deseret Morning News she would likely use the prison data entry program in the future.
"They do a good job," she said.
Source : deseretnews.com
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