Rebecca Thomson reports: A leading DNA scientist whose work led to the creation of the DNA database has called for innocent people to be removed from it. Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of genetic fingerprinting, says forcing innocent people to remain on the database will erode public support for the project. Currently anyone who is arrested…
Author: Dissent
Australian Government Set To Strip Privacy Protection From Patient Records
Government is taking a bold step in legislating to gain access to the private health records of all Australians. An exposure draft of legislation quietly released on the Thursday night before Easter will give government the right to access all information recorded by doctors on individual patients records. Read more on Medindia.com
Five Romanians arrested for hacking into U.S. pharmaceutical companies
Dan Kaplan of SC Magazine reports that five people have been arrested for illegally accessing computer systems belonging to unnamed U.S. pharmaceutical companies. The hackers allegedly installed keylogger software to steal card data on point-of-sales systems. Lucian Constantin reports that according to a DIICOT press release (in Romanian), the remote administration system used by the…
Ca: Breach of Confidentiality?
saskatoonhomepage.ca reports that a man who bought surplus boxes from Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) discovered that the boxes were not empty. They contained some insurance files with personal information. The agency is investigating and the privacy commissioner has been notifed.
Bits ‘n Pieces
In the justice system: Ashley Johnson was arrested in Memphis for trying to open a store account under a false name. When police searched her vehicle, they discovered cards in dozens of other identity cards. Johnson allegedly used names and identification numbers she found on employee applications that she took from trash containers behind such…
New fraud reports attributed to Heartland Payment Systems breach
A few weeks ago, Clearstar Financial Credit Union reported that a few dozen of their members had detected fraudulent charges on their cards that began on March 25. Given that lists of possibly compromised card numbers from the Heartland Payment Systems breach had been sent out in January and thereafter, some of us wondered whether…