Breach filing
ArchivedSouth Carolina Department of Health and Human Services: 228,435 individuals, Apr 2012.
South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 24 April 2012. The filing records the organisation as a health plan in South Carolina and lists 228,435 individuals affected, which makes it the 3rd largest of the 86 South Carolina filings on the register and the 3rd largest of the 218 filings submitted nationally in 2012. It was the only South Carolina filing in 2012.
Individuals affected
228,435
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$36.5M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in SC
3rd
of 86 South Carolina filings
Rank in 2012
3rd
of 218 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
- 228,435
- Breach submission date
- 24 April 2012
- Submission year
- 2012
- Type of breach
- Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- South Carolina (SC)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in South Carolina by size
- 3rd of 86
- Rank in 2012 nationally
- 3rd of 218
- South Carolina median filing
- 4,125 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- SC-20120424-south-carolina-department-of-health-and
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in South Carolina and in 2012
OCR classifies the incident as unauthorized access or disclosure, with the breached information held in email. Unauthorized Access/Disclosure is the type recorded on 15 of the 86 South Carolina filings (17%) and on 20% of all filings submitted in 2012. Email appears on 15% of South Carolina filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 34% of South Carolina filings do involve one. At 228,435 individuals the breach is 55 times the South Carolina median filing of 4,125 and 57 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.
South Carolina's breach notification statute (S.C. Code 39-1-90) requires notice to affected residents in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: no direct AG requirement (Dept. of Consumer Affairs at 1,000+ 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 228,435 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 $36.5M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $43.9M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. 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), South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, discovered that an employee sent Medicaid reports to her personal email from January 31, 2012, through April 4, 2012. The breach affected 228,435 individuals and the types of protected health information (PHI) involved in the breach included names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers and for 22,648 individuals, their Medicaid identification numbers. The CE provided timely breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. CE also posted notification about the breach on its website. In response to the breach, CE suspended access to most of its ad hoc electronic reporting, initiated a comprehensive review of its privacy and security safeguards, contacted local and federal law enforcement, and sanctioned the responsible employee. The CE also revised its security policies to restrict employee access to PHI to only that necessary for the individual's job function and implemented an automated monitoring system to track user activity in its computer system. CE also implemented annual privacy and security training. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed above.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
228,435 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$36.5M
228,435 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$43.9M
228,435 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services 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
South Carolina statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
South Carolina: S.C. Code 39-1-90
- Notice to individuals
- In the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- No direct AG requirement (Dept. of Consumer Affairs at 1,000+ residents)
- Private right of action
- Yes: Residents may sue; actual damages for negligent violations, broader recovery for knowing and willful
- Penalty
- Administrative fines of $1,000 per affected resident for knowing and willful violations
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
South Carolina filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among South Carolina filings in 2012, topped up from other years where 2012 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System | Healthcare Provider | 400,000 | 27 May 2011 | |||
| Stokes Regional Eye Centers | Healthcare Provider | 266,170 | 17 Jun 2022 | |||
| Roper St. Francis Healthcare | Healthcare Provider | 189,761 | 8 Jan 2021 | |||
| Sandhills Medical FoundationOpen | Healthcare Provider | 169,017 | 14 Sep 2025 | |||
| Innovative Scientific Solutions, LLCOpen | Healthcare Provider | 143,842 | 17 Apr 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 2026-08-28. 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 6689.
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.