Breach filing
ArchivedWalmart Inc.: 14,532 individuals, Jun 2021.
Walmart Inc. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 18 June 2021. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Arkansas and lists 14,532 individuals affected, which makes it the 29th largest of the 92 Arkansas filings on the register and the 256th largest of the 715 filings submitted nationally in 2021. Among the 8 Arkansas filings made in 2021 it ranks 3rd.
Individuals affected
14,532
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.33M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in AR
29th
of 92 Arkansas filings
Rank in 2021
256th
of 715 filings nationally
Section F.1 / The filing
As posted by HHS OCR
Every value below is the portal's own field for this filing, plus its rank within the register.
- Covered entity type
- Healthcare Provider
- Individuals affected
- 14,532
- Breach submission date
- 18 June 2021
- Submission year
- 2021
- Type of breach
- Loss
- Location of breached information
- Paper/Films
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Arkansas (AR)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Arkansas by size
- 29th of 92
- Rank in 2021 nationally
- 256th of 715
- Arkansas median filing
- 4,800 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- AR-20210618-walmart
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Arkansas and in 2021
OCR classifies the incident as loss of records or equipment, with the breached information held in paper records or films. Loss is the type recorded on 7 of the 92 Arkansas filings (8%) and on 1% of all filings submitted in 2021. Paper/Films appears on 13% of Arkansas filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 28% of Arkansas filings do involve one. At 14,532 individuals the breach is 3.0 times the Arkansas median filing of 4,800 and 3.6 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It sits in the 10,000 to 99,999 band, which holds 1,938 filings.
As of 28 August 2026 the case is listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive. OCR's closing summary of the case is reproduced in full below.
Arkansas's breach notification statute (Ark. Code Ann. 4-110-101 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents in the most expedient time and manner possible and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: more than 1,000 Arkansas residents. The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule ran alongside it: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery, which is the clock that put this filing on the portal.
Multiplying 14,532 individuals by IBM's $160 customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025, the figure the site's calculator uses) gives a modelled $2.33M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.79M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Walmart Inc.. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.4 times the sector average.
Section F.3 / OCR closing summary
The portal's archived description, in full
Written by the Office for Civil Rights when the case was closed and reproduced verbatim from the HHS export.
The covered entity (CE), Walmart, reported that it lost documents that contained the protected health information (PHI) of 14,532 individuals. The PHI involved included names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, subscriber identification numbers, claim numbers, diagnoses, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and provided substitute notice. In its mitigation efforts, the CE implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards to better protect its PHI. In addition, the CE retrained its workforce members on records management processes and procedures.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
14,532 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.33M
14,532 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.79M
14,532 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Walmart Inc. to HHS, multiplied by IBM's customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025 Figure 6 and the 2026 edition). No cost has been disclosed by the entity for this filing; the figure is a planning estimate, not a fact about the breach. IBM's per-record figures come from mid-volume breaches and IBM cautions against applying them to breaches involving millions of records; the site's per-record page explains where the multiplication holds and where it breaks down.
Context: IBM's average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M in the 2026 report ($7.42M in 2025); the global average across all sectors was $4.44M in 2025.
Cost per record: method and limits / Healthcare breach cost, IBM 2026
Section F.6 / Notification clock
Arkansas statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Arkansas: Ark. Code Ann. 4-110-101 et seq.
Personal Information Protection Act
- Notice to individuals
- In the most expedient time and manner possible and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- More than 1,000 Arkansas residents (At the time of individual notice or within 45 days of a harm determination, whichever is first)
- Private right of action
- No: No express private right of action under PIPA
- Penalty
- Up to $10,000 per violation under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act; willful violations are a misdemeanor
The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule runs alongside the state statute: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery.
Section F.7 / Peer filings
Arkansas filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Arkansas filings in 2021, topped up from other years where 2021 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doctors Health Group, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 47,660 | 2 Nov 2021 | |||
| Baptist Health Arkansas | Healthcare Provider | 16,765 | 21 Apr 2021 | |||
| Arkansas Health and Wellness Health Plan | Health Plan | 3,627 | 27 May 2021 | |||
| Walmart Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 2,071 | 5 Mar 2021 |
Index / Companion schedules
13 HHS breach register
→Hub: every filing, by state, year and entity.
04 Biggest breaches
→Mega-breaches with primary-source cost figures.
Industry / Healthcare
→IBM 2026: $6.64M average, 13 years at #1.
Regulation / HIPAA penalties
→OCR enforcement tiers and the 60-day rule.
11 50-state laws
→Deadline, AG threshold and penalties per state.
Cost / Per record
→Where the per-record model is reliable.
Provenance
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, Breach Portal (breaches affecting 500 or more individuals), retrieved 2026-08-28. Public domain. Individuals affected and dates as reported by the covered entity.
Portal: ocrportal.hhs.gov breach report. Statutory basis: HITECH Act section 13402(e)(4): the Secretary must post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals. Breaches affecting fewer than 500 individuals are reported to OCR annually and are not posted, so they are not on this register. Status wording follows the portal's two tabs ("Cases Currently Under Investigation" and "Archive") as of 28 August 2026; a filing moves to the archive when OCR closes the case. Modelled costs on this site are a method applied to the reported count, using IBM Cost of a Data Breach per-record figures, and are never a cost disclosed by the entity. This row: hhs-breach-archive__2026-08-28.csv, export row 3115.
Corrections: if you represent a listed entity and the portal row has been amended, email [email protected] with the portal entry and we will re-pull the export.