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Names, Social Security numbers compromised after data breach in St. Lucie County

Impacted residents should have received letter in mail
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ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. — Residents in St. Lucie County may have had their personal information accessed because of a recent configuration error at the county's drug screening lab.

County leaders said the error was discovered on Dec. 28, 2021, and that information was likely available to certain drug screen portal users between June 2017 and October 2021.

A notice sent to residents via mail listed names, Social Security numbers, types of drug tests and test results as the types of personal information that may have been compromised.

County leaders would not say how many residents were potentially affected, but that they are being offered a complimentary year of credit monitoring.

Residents who were affected should have received a letter in the mail.

"SLC Lab is committed to maintaining the privacy of personal information in its possession and has taken many precautions to safeguard it," said St. Lucie County spokesman Erick Gill. "SLC Lab continually evaluates and modifies its practices to enhance the security and privacy of the personal information it maintains. No other county data was impacted."

Residents were not alerted to the data breach until Jan. 20, almost a month later.

Gill said steps have been taken to make sure the error does not occur again.