PhysOrg reports: Private cellphone numbers of most Australian federal lawmakers, their staff and several former prime ministers have been made public after a government department failed to properly remove them from a routine report. The Department of Parliamentary Services on Monday confirmed the blunder in its latest report on lawmakers’ cellphone and internet spending published on its…
Month: March 2017
AU: NSW hospital patients not told their medical records were found in public areas
Nick Dole reports on the lack of transparency and notification following breaches of health data in NSW: NSW hospital patients have had their confidential details compromised on multiple occasions, including medical records being found in a public carpark. Many of the most serious privacy breaches have been reported in the Central Coast Local Health District,…
UK: Norfolk County Council fined for leaving sensitive files in cabinet sent to second hand shop
From the Information Commissioner’s Office: A county council which left files that included sensitive information about children in a cabinet sent to a second hand shop has been fined £60,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The breach by Norfolk County Council came to light after social work case files were discovered in a cabinet purchased by…
No, you can’t defend your reputation if it means revealing PHI without the patient’s consent
Here we go again, it seems. No matter how irate you may be a patient’s bad review and no matter how unfair you think it may be, no, you cannot just reveal their protected health information without their consent – even if they revealed some of it themselves. Patrick Danner reports: A San Antonio doctor…
TX: Email gaffe revealed 1,417 cancer patients’ email addresses
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…
FBI agent took down teen hacker by pretending to be a reporter – and media didn’t like that
Raphael Satter of AP reports: The young hacker was told in no uncertain terms: You are safe with me. “I am not trying to find out your true identity,” AP journalist Norm Weatherill assured the teenager in an online chat. “As a member of the Press, I would rather not know who you are as…