Teresa Woodard reports: Thousands of documents containing personal, confidential information were discovered in a North St. Louis dumpster. It is the kind of data that could lead to hundreds, if not thousands of cases of identity theft. But there’s no way to know how it got there, or who put it there. […] “I got…
Author: Dissent
NZ: Doctor cleared of privacy breach
An Invercargill doctor who was reprimanded by the Privacy Commissioner for telling a nursing home one of its employees was a drug addict has been cleared of any wrongdoing in a judicial review. The High Court at Wellington found commissioner Marie Shroff wrongly ruled against general practitioner Robert Henderson over the 2003 disclosure. Dr Henderson…
(RBS follow-up) Ex-cop admits role in $4.2m ATM heist
Patsy Moy reports: Two Hong Kong men using fake bank cards produced by US-based hackers withdrew HK$4.2 million [USD $541,024.47 — Dissent] from various ATM machines in less than eight hours, the District Court heard yesterday. Cheung Hoi-wing, 40, a transport worker and former police officer, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy after admitting…
Hacked US Treasury websites serve visitors malware
Dan Goodin reports: Websites operated by the US Treasury Department are redirecting visitors to websites that attempt to install malware on their PCs, a security researcher warned on Monday. The infection buries an invisible iframe in bep.treas.gov, moneyfactory.gov, and bep.gov that invokes malicious scripts from grepad.com, Roger Thompson, chief research officer of AVG Technologies, told…
New breach notification requirements in effect in Canada
From the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Alberta: Amendments to the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) were proclaimed in force on May 1, 2010, and added a new requirement for organizations to notify the Information and Privacy Commissioner of incidents “involving the loss of or unauthorized access to or disclosure of personal information where…
Hospital fulfills subpoena, gets hit with privacy suit
Amy Lynn Sorrel reports: Patient privacy is no doubt paramount in any physician practice. But when a subpoena suddenly is thrust into the physician-patient relationship, doctors may find themselves caught between the law and their privacy obligations. The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio found itself in such a predicament when it agreed to turn over a…