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TX: Email gaffe revealed 1,417 cancer patients’ email addresses

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Dissent

Cindy George reports:

A “carbon copy” email sent last week from the Houston Methodist Cancer Center to patients showed the addresses of all recipients, potentially revealing their identities to the public and their association with the treatment facility.

Patients were alerted about the issue by Houston Methodist in a letter dated March 16 and sent out Friday morning, according to Methodist spokeswoman Stefanie Asin.

“On March 9, 2017, one of our employees unintentionally disclosed your email address to 1,416 other patients, and associated it with the Houston Methodist Cancer Center while requesting follow-up information. Instead of protecting your identifying information (for example using the bcc feature to “blind” your e-mail address), as required by our policies, the email addresses of all intended recipients were placed in the “cc” section, making the email addresses visible,” the letter said.

Read more on Houston Chronicle.

Was there no technical protection/safeguard to prevent something going out to so many cc: addresses?

Category: ExposureHealth DataU.S.

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