The Florida Department of Health says it's responding to a "possible cyber incident" that is affecting birth, death, and marriage certificates all over the state.
Tim Hauck is the managing partner for Fuller Metz Cremation and Funeral Services in Cape Coral. He says on June 28, the entire state of Florida's vital statistics system went down. Ever since then, he's had to get death certificates "the old-fashioned way."
"We're back to kind of a manual way of us physically creating the death certificates here at the funeral home, faxing them to doctors, waiting for doctors to sign those and then hand-delivering death certificates and permits to the health department," Hauck said.
Without those documents, families cannot arrange burials or cremations. They also cannot receive important benefits, like life insurance.
"It's hard enough to lose somebody," Hauck said. "The longer a family has to wait to get that certified copy could certainly delay them from a financial standpoint, handling a lot the estate and assets."
Hauck also points out that these documents contain a lot of personal information, like dates of birth, maiden names, Social Security numbers and addresses.
"But I will tell you that in my 35 years in this business, I've never really had any identity problems. So hopefully, it will stay the same way," Hauck said.
The Florida Department of Health has not said when this issue will be resolved.