A laptop containing NFL players’ medical records was stolen from the car of an athletic trainer with the Washington Redskins, the team confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.
After the incident, which took place on April 15 in downtown Indianapolis, the Redskins notified local law enforcement and cooperated with the investigation.
“No social security numbers, Protected Health Information (PHI) under HIPAA, or financial information were stolen or are at risk of exposure,” the statement read.
“The laptop was password-protected but unencrypted, but we have no reason to believe the laptop password was compromised. The NFL’s electronic medical records system was not impacted. The team is working with the NFL and NFLPA to locate and notify players who may have been impacted. The team is also taking steps to prevent future incidents of this nature, including by encrypting all laptops issued to athletic trainers and other team personnel and through enhanced security training.”
According to several media outlets, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith later sent an email to players informing them of the incident.
As explained in the email, the computer contained files with medical examination results from the NFL combine, dating as far back to 2004.
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“We have also been advised that the backpack contained a zip drive and certain hard copy records of NFL combine medical examinations as well as portions of current Redskins’ player medical records,” Smith’s email read. “It is our understanding that our Electronic Monitoring System prevented the downloading of any player medical records held by the team from the new EMR system.”
• Anthony Gulizia can be reached at agulizia@washingtontimes.com.
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