Multnomah County Health Department Data Breach (2012)

On August 24, 2012, a Multnomah County Health Department employee automatically forwarded all emails from an employee county email account to a personal Google email account not maintained by the Oregon county. Some of these emails included PHI, which may have created a PHI breach, according to the department’s online statement. Multnomah County employees discovered the incident on November 22, 2016 during an audit. An investigation began and found no evidence that messages in the personal email account were misused in any way. After the investigation, county personnel concluded the personal email account had since been deleted and was no longer available to the employee.