Yesterday, I posted an item about a settlement between New Jersey and Virtua Medical Group after a 2016 data leak by their transcription vendor exposed approximately 1,600 patients’ information on the internet. New Jersey took the position that this was a HIPAA violation and that the entity was responsible for what its vendor had done…
Month: April 2018
Dozens of hospital staff access medical records of suicidal reality soap star
Dozens of people have been able to access the medical files of a television reality show star who tried to commit suicide, according to television current affairs show EenVandaag. Samantha de Jong, better known as Barbie, was admitted to hospital in January after trying to kill herself. She had hardly been off the tv since…
DriveHer, ride-sharing app for women, suspends service after data breach exposes personal information
Jaren Kerr reports: The owner of a ride-sharing app created to increase safety and security for women drivers and riders has suspended its services after learning that its user data was vulnerable to a breach. DriveHer, which launched in Toronto in March and has more than 1,000 downloads, was created to both empower women and…
Companies will now have to tell Canadian consumers when their privacy is breached — and do it quickly
Amanda Connolly reports: After close to three years, the government is finally pushing through regulations that require companies to tell Canadian consumers when their personal information is compromised. The Digital Privacy Actbecame law in August 2015, but several of its provisions were not immediately implemented and have languished on the books pending official authorizations needed…
Virtua Medical Group Agrees to Pay Nearly $418,000, Tighten Data Security to Settle Allegations of Privacy Lapses Concerning Medical Treatment Files of Patients
There’s a follow-up to a breach previously reported on this site in 2016 in which a transcription vendor’s error resulted in the exposure of some Virtua Medical Group’s patients’ protected health information on the internet. It appears that New Jersey has settled charges against VMG over the incident. Of note, the charges are that the VMG…
Facebook hackers could have collected personal data of 2 billion users
Craig Timberg, Tony Romm and Elizabeth Dwoskin of The Washington Post report: Facebook said Wednesday that “malicious actors” took advantage of search tools on its platform, making it possible for them to discover the identities and collect information on most of its 2 billion users worldwide. The revelation came amid rising acknowledgment by Facebook about…