Target Breach: Are Pharmacy Records Safe?

Target has not indicated that pharmacy records were exposed, although some say the recent data breach amplifies concerns about “medical identity theft” at retail chains with pharmacies.

Some experts say that recently released details about Target’s data breach heighten concerns about the safety of other customer information held by it and other major retail chains.

And health care data stored in pharmacy records may be a prime target for thieves, at Target as well as other pharmacy chains.

If financial information, which is subject to stringent regulatory standards, was stolen, “then everything else is fair game,” Avivah Litan, a fraud analyst with IT research firm Gartner, told Twin Cities Business.

Deborah Peel, a health-privacy expert based in Austin, Texas, who leads the non-partisan Coalition for Patient Privacy, agrees.