CBC News reports:
The Vitalité Health Network is informing some patients their personal medical records were accessed without authorization.
The privacy breach was discovered a year ago.
A doctor with the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre gained unauthorized access to the files using two hospital computers between Sept. 6, 2010 and Nov. 30, 2012, the letter signed by Vitalité CEO Rino Volpé states.
The compromised information could include the reason a patient was referred, the types of tests or examinations the patient underwent, the results, and the diagnosis, according to the three-page letter.
It could also include their medicare number, as well as demographic information, such as name, age, address, and telephone number.
Read more on CBC.
So the breach was recurrent between Sept. 6, 2010 and Nov. 30, 2012 and the hospital discovered the breach in February 2013 (and how did they discover it?), but they didn’t notify patients until February 2014? And they’ve yet to take any “appropriate disciplinary action” but “envisage” doing so?
This is pretty outrageous, but it seems Canadian law does not require disclosure, much less timely disclosure.