Breach filing
Under investigationRegional Center of Orange County: 16,545 individuals, Jul 2026.
Regional Center of Orange County reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 27 July 2026. The filing records the organisation as a business associate in California and lists 16,545 individuals affected, which makes it the 194th largest of the 777 California filings on the register and the 125th largest of the 478 filings submitted nationally in 2026. Among the 45 California filings made in 2026 it ranks 8th.
Individuals affected
16,545
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.65M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in CA
194th
of 777 California filings
Rank in 2026
125th
of 478 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
- Business Associate
- Individuals affected
- 16,545
- Breach submission date
- 27 July 2026
- Submission year
- 2026
- Type of breach
- Improper Disposal
- Location of breached information
- Paper/Films
- Business associate present
- Yes
- State
- California (CA)
- Portal status
- listed by HHS OCR under Cases Currently Under Investigation
- Rank in California by size
- 194th of 777
- Rank in 2026 nationally
- 125th of 478
- California median filing
- 3,553 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- CA-20260727-regional-center-of-orange-county
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in California and in 2026
OCR classifies the incident as improper disposal, with the breached information held in paper records or films. Improper Disposal is the type recorded on 8 of the 777 California filings (1%) and on 0% of all filings submitted in 2026. Paper/Films appears on 15% of California filings.
A business associate is recorded as present on the filing, as it is on 33% of California filings. At 16,545 individuals the breach is 4.7 times the California median filing of 3,553 and 4.1 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,927 filings. It sits in the 10,000 to 99,999 band, which holds 1,950 filings.
As of 10 September 2026 the case is listed by HHS OCR under Cases Currently Under Investigation. OCR has not published a closing summary, so this page is limited to the fields on the filing itself; the archive entry that follows a closed investigation usually adds a short account of what was exposed and what the entity did afterwards.
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 16,545 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 $2.65M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $3.18M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Regional Center of Orange County. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.5 times the sector average.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
16,545 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.65M
16,545 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$3.18M
16,545 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Regional Center of Orange County 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 2026, topped up from other years where 2026 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City Health, a medical corporation | Healthcare Provider | 65,000 | 14 Apr 2026 | |||
| Marin Cancer Care | Healthcare Provider | 27,332 | 6 Feb 2026 | |||
| ZenPatient, Inc.Open | Healthcare Provider | 15,749 | 17 Jul 2026 | |||
| La Clinica de La Raza, Inc. (La Clinica) | Healthcare Provider | 11,403 | 22 Jan 2026 |
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 2026-09-10. 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 10 September 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-under-investigation__2026-09-10.csv, export row 37.
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.