From the Information Commissioner’s Office: Dumfries and Galloway Council breached the Data Protection Act by accidentally publishing a spreadsheet containing the names, salaries and dates of birth of nearly 900 current and former employees on their website, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said today. The personal information – which was mistakenly disclosed as part of…
Author: Dissent
MA: Spectrum says personal, health care info stolen
A local health systems company said a stolen hard drive contains personal and protected health information of some of its clients. According to a statement from Spectrum, no financial information was on the hard drive, and the data was double password protected. However, it was not encrypted because it was being used temporarily, and patient…
Medical identity theft a growing problem
Pamela Lewis Dolan reports: One-third of health care organizations, including physician practices, insurers and pharmacies, have reported catching a patient using the identity of someone else to obtain services, according to a report from the professional services firm PwC. […] Medical identity theft is still a small percentage of the total amount of identity theft…
GA: Law firm's documents dumped in trash
Ashley Fielding reports: Files containing private information of clients of one of Gainesville’s best-known attorneys showed up in the strangest of places last week — a newspaper recycling bin at The Times. The files came from the law office of Ashley Bell, a member of the Hall County Board of Commissioners, who said he wasn’t…
Lesson learned from a data breach: "Trust but verify"
Tony Kennedy and Maura Lerner report on the aftermath of a contractor breach that affected patients at Fairview and North Memorial hospitals in Minnesota. For those who may not recall the Accretive breach, the reporters provide a summary: On the night of July 28, according to police reports, a consultant named Matthew Doyle, who worked…
SAISD website exposes students’ personal info (updated)
Lindsay Kastner reports: Confidential information about dozens of San Antonio Independent School District students was exposed on the Internet, apparently for months, and officials were scrambling Friday to repair the security breach. A Google search by a San Antonio Express-News reader who was checking out an unfamiliar phone number brought up the district’s “Potential Dropout…