Barbara Cotter reports: A Colorado Springs city health employee recently accused of inappropriately accessing about 2,500 Memorial Health System patient records claimed that “it’s pretty damn common” for medical professionals to peek at files for unwarranted reasons. “Common” might be overstating things, but statistics suggest it happens more often than patients might realize. Since 2008,…
Author: Dissent
Settlement of yet another lawsuit against WellPoint /Anthem Blue Cross gets preliminary approval
If you feel like you need a scorecard to keep track of lawsuits against WellPoint or settlements involving WellPoint, it’s understandable. WellPoint recently settled a lawsuit by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office over delayed notification following a breach that occurred in 2009 and continued until after a customer notified them twice in 2010. Then they settled…
Toshiba confirms they were hacked; customers notified
Last week I noted that Toshiba appeared to have been hacked. Now they’ve confirmed it. John Oates reports: Toshiba says that unidentified hackers have stolen customer records belonging to 7,500 of its customers. Credit cards details were not compromised, but emails, addresses, passwords and phone numbers all went missing. Read more on The Register. A press release…
Government scolded for data breach notification delays
Aliya Sternstein reports: The Obama administration in recent weeks has recommended that companies move more quickly to alert customers when their personal data is compromised. Now internal auditors are recommending the federal government listen to its own advice. In a report released Thursday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration dinged the IRS for not notifying taxpayers…
NE: ‘Unfortunate situation’ at Kitchen Place auction
We’ve known for a long time that when businesses fold, they may just dump records with sensitive information instead of disposing of them properly. And in many states, such actions would not necessarily be illegal. Here’s a timely reminder from Nebraska about a bankruptcy auction involving the Kitchen Place: Two file cabinets that…
Finland: Patient records illegally accessed at Helsinki hospital
Yle Etela-Karjala reports: Haartman hospital in Helsinki has uncovered the theft of hundreds of patients’ medical records. A temporary secretary at the hospital gained unauthorised access to the electronic records of nearly two hundred patients. […] Haatrman hospital employed the worker for four months in the spring of 2010. When the data protection breaches were…