Breach filing
ArchivedHealth Plan of San Joaquin: 418,842 individuals, Dec 2020.
Health Plan of San Joaquin reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 21 December 2020. The filing records the organisation as a health plan in California and lists 418,842 individuals affected, which makes it the 31st largest of the 776 California filings on the register and the 14th largest of the 663 filings submitted nationally in 2020. Among the 53 California filings made in 2020 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
418,842
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$67.0M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in CA
31st
of 776 California filings
Rank in 2020
14th
of 663 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
- Health Plan
- Individuals affected
- 418,842
- Breach submission date
- 21 December 2020
- Submission year
- 2020
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- California (CA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in California by size
- 31st of 776
- Rank in 2020 nationally
- 14th of 663
- California median filing
- 3,553 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- CA-20201221-health-plan-of-san-joaquin
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in California and in 2020
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in email. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 398 of the 776 California filings (51%) and on 69% of all filings submitted in 2020. Email appears on 20% of California filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 33% of California filings do involve one. At 418,842 individuals the breach is 118 times the California median filing of 3,553 and 105 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It is one of 801 filings of 100,000 or more individuals.
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.
California's breach notification statute (Cal. Civ. Code 1798.82) requires notice to affected residents within 30 calendar days of discovery (effective 1 January 2026, SB 446). Its attorney general threshold: more than 500 California 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 418,842 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 $67.0M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $80.4M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Health Plan of San Joaquin. Because the filing is above the roughly 100,000-record range in which the per-record figure is reliable, the result is an upper bound, not an estimate: fixed costs are spread across far more records at this scale.
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), Health Plan of San Joaquin, reported that several employees were the victims of an email phishing scheme that affected the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 418,842 individuals. The ePHI involved included names, Social Security numbers, drivers' license numbers, health insurance information, claims and financial information, dates of birth, lab results, prescription information, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and provided substitute notice on its website. The CE also offered complimentary credit monitoring services. In response to the breach, the CE updated its email access protocols and implemented additional technical safeguards.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
418,842 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$67.0M
418,842 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$80.4M
418,842 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Health Plan of San Joaquin 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
California statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
California: Cal. Civ. Code 1798.82
- Notice to individuals
- Within 30 calendar days of discovery (effective 1 January 2026, SB 446)
- Attorney general threshold
- More than 500 California residents (Within 15 calendar days after notifying affected consumers)
- Private right of action
- Yes: Under CCPA Civ. Code 1798.150 for breaches from failure to maintain reasonable security; $107-$799 per consumer per incident (CPI-adjusted from $100-$750, effective Jan 2025)
- Penalty
- CCPA civil penalties of $2,663 per violation, $7,988 per intentional violation (CPI-adjusted, effective Jan 2025); CCPA private right of action for security-failure breaches
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
California filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among California filings in 2020, topped up from other years where 2020 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brightline, Inc. | Business Associate | 473,467 | 7 Apr 2023 | |||
| Omni Family Health | Healthcare Provider | 468,344 | 4 Oct 2024 | |||
| Planned Parenthood Los Angeles | Healthcare Provider | 409,759 | 30 Nov 2021 | |||
| Good Samaritan Hospital, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 233,835 | 17 Apr 2020 | |||
| Ambry Genetics Corporation | Healthcare Provider | 225,370 | 22 Mar 2020 |
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 3480.
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.