Private data from the health records of hundreds of Bulgarians kept by the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) has been leaked to third parties, trade union leader Konstantin Trenchev said on August 7.

The breach of information security was detected during a check conducted by the State Agency for National Security (SANS), at the request of the NHIF.

On August 7 2008, SANS first denied and then confirmed that it had carried out the NHIF probe.

A NHIF computer expert accessed files with private data without proper authorisation and them provided the information to various third parties, a representative from SANS said.

The protocol from the probe will be sent to the prosecution authorities by the end of the week, the same SANS employee said.

No one has been apprehended in connection with the investigation, but the computer specialist in question was questioned and made a full confession, the SANS representative said.

The NHIF said that the new information system it had adopted on July 1 2008 would prevent such security breaches.