It’s been an interesting few weeks for those who have followed the Cord Blood Registry (CBR) data breach. As background: back in February 2011, CBR disclosed that backup tapes with 300,000 people’s information had been stolen from an employee’s unattended vehicle in December 2010. CBR offered those affected one year of free credit monitoring and…
Month: February 2013
12 Sue North Shore University Hospital In L.I., Allege Breach Resulted in Identity Thefts
Twelve people filed a lawsuit yesterday against North Shore University Hospital in New York, following a breach in which patient face sheets were stolen. Some claim to have been victims of identity theft as a result of the breach. Two suspects were arrested last year. And no, this breach isn’t listed in HHS’s breach tool…
Boca Raton Regional Hospital employee charged in tax refund fraud scheme that used patients' information
Brian Bandell reports: Federal authorities charged eight people with identity theft for filing fraudulent federal tax refunds in five separate cases, including that of a former Boca Raton Regional Hospital scheduler. Shalamar Major had access to the personal information of the hospital’s patients and gave it to Tanisha Wright in exchange for the promise of future payments, according to a…
HHS breach investigations badly backlogged, leaving us in the dark
To say that I am frequently frustrated by HHS’s “breach tool” would be an understatement. Their reporting form and coding often makes it impossible to know – simply by looking at their entries – what type of breach occurred. Consider this description from one of their entries: “Theft, Unauthorized Access/Disclosure”,”Laptop, Computer, Network Server, Email” So…
In Online Patient Communities, How Much Sharing Is Too Much?
Lindsay Abrams writes: When you become a patient, a whole new world of social networking opens up. There’s one site that was described to me as being “like Match.com for cancer patients,” because it sorts its users by a/s/l, along with type of cancer and treatment. Another tailors itself to women with breast cancer and provides a space…
ACLU Challenging DEA’s Access to Confidential Prescription Records Without a Warrant
Ooh. I missed this important post by Nathan Freed Wessler of the ACLU last week: The Drug Enforcement Administration is trying to access private prescription records of patients in Oregon without a warrant, despite a state law forbidding it from doing so. The ACLU and its Oregon affiliate are challenging this practice in a new…