The 2010 Identity Fraud Survey Report – released today by Javelin Strategy & Research (http://www.javelinstrategy.com/) – found that the number of identity fraud victims in the United States increased 12 percent to 11.1 million adults in 2009, while the total annual fraud amount increased by 12.5 percent to $54 billion(1). The report found that protection…
Author: Dissent
Update: BlueCross ID theft warnings top 500,000 and growing
Dave Flessner reports: Another 301,628 current and former members of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee soon will be getting letters alerting them that their personal information was included on computer hard drives stolen from the insurance company last year. The Chattanooga-based health insurer announced today that the number of affected customers with potentially compromised identification and…
KC Art Institute employees may have been victimized in potential identity theft
About 145 employees at the Kansas City Art Institute have been notified of potential identity theft in connection with the disappearance of a computer from the campus. An Apple computer that contained Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other personal information about the school’s professors and staff employees was stolen from the human resource…
NZ: ACC says sorry for botched mailout
Rachel Tiffen reports: ACC [Accident Compensation Corporation] has apologised “unreservedly” to thousands of businesses and individuals whose private information about workplace injuries was sent to the wrong companies. The corporation sends out 15,000 individual reports each month and yesterday 2000 were mailed to the wrong businesses. In a statement issued last night, general manager Dr…
It's Complicated …
Joe Harris reports on an alleged love triangle where the big loser appears to have been HIPAA protections: Jane Doe claims that while her boyfriend was two-timing her with a Quest Diagnostics manager, the Quest employee looked up Doe’s medical test results and told their common boyfriend that Doe has herpes. Doe adds that when…
Za: Hijacked IDs are fuelling spending sprees
Identity theft has increased phenomenally in South Africa, reaching such a level that a major retailer is thinking about installing photo-recognition or fingerprint scanners in its stores. Johan Kok, chief operating officer of JD Group, said identity theft had become much more sophisticated in the past five years. Their group is part of the South…