Confidential files on 25 people were on a computer stolen from the home of a Kirklees Council employee. The laptop theft was one of several incidents in which private data was lost by the authority. The council also lost a paper file containing children’s social services information, it emerged in new details revealed by the…
Author: Dissent
AU: DNA test names exposed online
Hedley Thomas reports: Australians seeking confidential DNA paternity tests to establish the parentage of their children have been outed online in a major privacy breach at Australia’s largest drug and alcohol testing company. Other sensitive data accidentally disclosed by the national company, Medvet, also compromise the privacy of hundreds of people who have confidentially ordered…
N.H. medical board cites additional violations by doctor
Matthew Spolar reports: The State Board of Medicine added to its critical review of a Tilton doctor yesterday, announcing another $87,900 in fines for professional misconduct while she practiced at the Riverfront Medical Group. Dr. Susan Hare, already fined thousands of dollars and banned from practicing medicine for previous ethics issues, was cited for an…
An unintended exposure leads to a mea culpa from an online psychiatry journal
When the editors of Psychiatric Times were alerted that they had inadvertently revealed some names and email addresses of those who responded to a survey on ethical dilemmas, they did the right thing. In a letter dated June 10 on their web site, they wrote: Dear Readers, Not long ago, we posted a survey on…
Hospital employee and three others accused of stealing patients' identities
Meredith Cohn reports: A federal grand jury has indicted four people, including a former employee of the University of Maryland Medical Center, in what prosecutors said was a scheme to steal patients’ identities. The 17-count indictment was unsealed Thursday after the arrests of Kenneth Elliott McDowell, 47; Wendy Hinton, 21; and William White, 54, all…
MT: Yellowstone County website hacked
Katrina Heser reports: The State of Montana Technology Department told Yellowstone County today their website has been hacked. It’s possible that taxpayers who paid property taxes by electronic bank transfer may have had their account number exposed to the hacker. This does not include taxpayers who made payments by paper check or debit/credit cards. The…