The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has agreed to take action after MPs personal details were accidentally placed at risk on the MPs expenses database, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said today. The expenses claims were accessible for a period of 21 hours, following IT maintenance work in July 2010 which inadvertently allowed those persons…
Author: Dissent
Stolen storage device contained credit card info for Dartmouth freshmen or parents
Dartmouth College has notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that a storage device stolen from a secure room on or about Nov. 8 contained credit card information on 147 freshmen or their parents. According to the letter sent Nov. 22, data on the stolen device contained some combination of student and/or parent names, phone…
AU: Leak of draft e-health document raises privacy concerns
Karen Dearne reports: Patients will have limited control of their medical information, as a leaked document shows consumer access will be confined to a portal. While Health Minister Nicola Roxon said consumers would “truly control” their personal electronic health records at her e-health forum last week, attendees did not see a draft concept of operations,…
Concerns raised over federal workers' health care database
Kaiser Health News reports: An Office of Personnel Management plan to launch a comprehensive database of federal workers’ health care records has raised the ire of some privacy advocates, employee unions and consumer groups. OPM is organizing a research database of insurance claims filed by the eight million workers and dependents enrolled in the Federal…
PA: Woodland Hills website lists some student test scores in error
A superintendent’s report posted on the Internet — intended to help Woodland Hills school board members decide whether to stop using an alternative school — exposed for more than a week the confidential state test scores of individual students. Woodland Hills Superintendent Walter Calinger said the portion of his report containing the names and performance…
Workers’ health information off-limits, except when it’s not
Diane Stafford writes: Do you have to take a pre-offer or post-offer medical exam or a fitness-for-duty test? Are you asking for family leave to care for your mother because she’s dying of breast cancer? Did you write on your Facebook page about your family history of heart attacks? Are there questions about your family’s…