So how many times have I said – here and on DataBreaches.net – that it’s much much better for breached entities to get out ahead of a breach disclosure than to have others disclose the breach?
SLC Security has been investigating breaches – including those involving patient data. They tried – with limited success, it seems – to get breached or vulnerable entities to respond to notifications and to take action to protect personal information. Now they write that they’re taking this to the next level:
HIPAA Has No Teeth – Here’s what we are going to start doing
Starting today we will start mailing out notifications directly to the affected person’s when we don’t get a response from the organization we report. It’s not fair that companies can choose to ignore issues that they know exist and it’s really not fair that they take the stance that if they are not aware of the issue that they can just ignore it while consumers are sitting by hoping nothing happens to their identities or their bank accounts.
It seems that organizations feel as though it’s alright to violate the consumers trust. Out of 29 organizations that we have contacted only 3 have actually taken steps to remedy the problems that we have identified. We started thinking like the consumer and the one thing that kept coming back to us is if it was our data we would want to know what was released, how it was released and if the company responded when we notified them of the problem.
Starting today we will be sending out notices to persons that can be identified and located. If companies fail to respond I’m pretty sure they will fail to respond to request by the consumers that are affected also because it’s easier to ignore the problem than to fix the problem.
After all if it was your private information being leaked wouldn’t you want to know?
Note their comment: “it’s really not fair that they take the stance that if they are not aware of the issue that they can just ignore it while consumers are sitting by hoping nothing happens to their identities or their bank accounts.” I don’t think HHS accepts ignorance as an excuse. Neither does the FTC. While SLC Security is taking the tack of notifying those who are at risk or whose data have been exposed or compromised, nothing stops them from also filing a complaint against the entity with HHS and/or the FTC.
But imagine what might happen if patients start getting alerts from a security firm that tells them their hospital was told about a vulnerability or breach and didn’t respond? This will not be good for reputation.