California Agency Turns To Snail Mail After Database HackCalifornia Agency Turns To Snail Mail After Database Hack

The California Department of Social Services has found that traditional snail mail may sometimes work better than the Internet.

Since October, the state agency has been trying to reach 1.4 million people whose personal data may have been accessed by someone who hacked into a computer database at the University of California, Berkeley. The database contained the names, social security numbers and other personal data of about 600,000 people who provide and receive in-home health care from the state's Health and Human Services Agency, which is a part of the Social Services Department.

State officials decided to spend $691,000 to contact all the people in the database by mail, after a hotline set up by the state attracted only 9,000 calls, and a web site only 1,000 users. The mailing will go out Wednesday.

"We want to be sure that all the 1.4 million people receive notification (of the break-in)," Shirley Washington, spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services said. "We want to ensure that notification was properly received, so the affected population can take immediate steps to protect themselves."

As to why the Internet proved so ineffective, Washington didn't know for sure, but suggested it may have been because many of the people receiving in-home care are elderly, disabled or both and may not have access to a computer.

"That could account for the minimum number of web site hits," Washington said.

The Department of Social Services announced Oct. 20 that the U.C. Berkeley database had been hacked. A visiting scholar at the university was using the data to determine how wage and benefit increases can improve the recruitment and retention quality of home-care workers.