Ontario’s privacy commissioner is investigating a huge breach up north. A USB drive containing personal health information of more than 80,000 people who went to flu clinics in Durham Region, was lost by a public health nurse who was taking it to a vaccination clinic.

The data includes “names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, health card numbers and the names of primary physicians for 83,524 people who visited flu clinics for a seasonal or H1N1 shot between Oct. 23 – Dec. 15.”

And, of course, this is big news because, as usual, the USB device was not encrypted. Not by MyLaptopGPS FIPS-certified strong encryption for data at rest. Not by any other technology. Not at all. Kind of sounds like a Dr. Seuss book.

Unfortunately, now 80,000+ people get to wonder what’s happened to their health information. Thanks go to Redemtech for the tip.