Feb. 27--ProPublica launched an app Friday that allows consumers to easily see whether their health companies have been hacked since 2009.
The new app comes a few days after Illinoisans learned their personal information may have been compromised in a massive data breach at health insurance provider Anthem. The breach affected nearly 80 million people across the country, including 215,000 in Illinois.
The app also shows what federal fines were imposed as a result of the data breaches, which a ProPublica spokeswoman said in an email are "shockingly rare, even as data breaches proliferate." Just seven large data breaches since October 2009 have resulted in fines.
Since that time, ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism company, said health care organizations and their business partners have reported 1,142 data breaches that affected at least 500 people to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
More than 120,000 smaller lapses were reported in that time, bringing the number of fines from the Office of Civil Rights to 22.
ehirst@tribpub.com
