Tampa General Hospital Failed to Protect Private Data of 1.2M Patients, Class Action Says

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A proposed class action lawsuit claims negligence on the part of Tampa General Hospital (TGH) is to blame for a May 2023 data breach that compromised the personal information of approximately 1.2 million patients.

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The 78-page lawsuit says that although defendant Florida Health Sciences Center, Inc.—which does business as TGH—first discovered suspicious activity on its computer network on May 31, a subsequent investigation determined that an unauthorized third party had infiltrated the private hospital’s systems between May 12 and May 30.

According to TGH’s data breach notice, the private information compromised by the cyberattack included current and former patients’ names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, health insurance data, medical record and patient account numbers, dates of service and certain treatment details.

The suit charges that the private hospital—one of the largest in Florida—negligently failed to implement proper data security measures to safeguard the personal information stored in its computer systems.

What’s more, although TGH purportedly detected the cyberattack on May 31, it only began notifying data breach victims roughly two months later, in late July, the case states. The notice letters themselves offered few details, the complaint adds, and did not explain why it took the defendant almost three weeks to discover the breach, how the unauthorized third party gained access to the network, why TGH delayed notifying victims and what steps are being taken, if any, to secure the sensitive data in the future.

In light of the frequency of cyberattacks in the medical industry in recent years, TGH should have been aware of the threat and taken appropriate measures to protect the personal information entrusted to it, the filing contests.

The plaintiff, a former patient residing in Florida, received notice on July 28, 2023 informing her that her private data had been compromised in the breach, the lawsuit says. Like other victims, the plaintiff has been offered 12 months of complimentary identity monitoring services, but the case argues that this gesture is “wholly inadequate” given the lifelong threat of fraud and identity theft that the woman now faces as a result of the hospital’s negligence.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States whose private information was accessed and/or acquired by an unauthorized party as a result of the data breach reported by Tampa General Hospital in July 2023.

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