Leon Spencer reports: The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has revealed that it received more than 100 voluntary data breach notifications in the 12 months since changes to the country’s Privacy Act 1988 came into effect in March 2014. The OAIC said on Thursday that it had received 104 voluntary data breach notifications from the industry, 14,064 privacy…
Month: March 2015
UK: Mass Surveillance: Intelligence Staff Sacked
Sky News reports: A number of British intelligence staff have been sacked for inappropriately accessing personal information, it has emerged. […] When asked by Sky News for further details about why intelligence staff were sacked, the committee’s spokeswoman MP Hazel Blears replied: “I think we say in the report that these incidents have been extremely rare….
Miami-Dade County Resident Sentenced In Stolen Identity Unemployment Insurance Fraud Scheme
A North Miami Beach resident was sentenced yesterday to 96 months imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for filing fraudulent unemployment insurance claims using the personal identifying information (PII) of more than 90 individuals. According to court records, from at least as early as December 2013, through the summer of 2014, the…
Fear of data breaches leads 21% of patients to withhold information from physicians
Elizabeth Earl reports: The national attention on the risk of data breaches may be keeping patients from sharing information with physicians. A survey from Austin, Texas-based software advising firm Software Advice of 243 people found that 45 percent of respondents were moderately or very concerned about security breaches involving personal health information. Nearly a quarter,…
How Data-Breach Hype Undermines Your Security
Sue Marquette Paremba takes the media out to the wood shed for reporting on breaches in ways that repeat false claims of “sophisticated” attacks and that may leave us thinking that there’s nothing we can do to protect ourselves or better secure data we are responsible for: Some media outlets called last month’s data breach at health-insurance company…
Hospital worker: Ex-husband’s email snooping violated patient rights
Priscilla DeGregory and Laura Italiano report: It was a new low — even for her already sneaky, abusive ex-husband. A New York anesthesiologist testified Wednesday that she was “completely shocked” to learn that her physician husband had been reading her emails for seven years — including as they separated, divorced, and battled over support and…