A Texas City man has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for stealing the identity of a Vietnam War veteran and using that identity to receive health care benefits, acting United States Attorney Tim Johnson announced today. Gerry Lynn McAfee, 52, pleaded guilty to the federal charges Feb. 24, 2009. McAfee received thousands of…
Author: Dissent
FL: Hospital employee prosecuted under HIPAA
In a rare criminal prosecution under HIPAA, Jacquettia L. Brown and Tear Renee Barbary, both residents of Miami-Dade County have been indicted on offenses relating to the theft of patient profile records from Palmetto General Hospital to further a fraud scheme. Brown was an employee of the hospital. More details on the indictment can be…
TN: State Wants Medical Records Database
Cara Kumari reports: Could an individual’s medical records hold the answers to some of the state’s serious health problems? “The purpose here is to build as broad a set of population health data as possible so that we can really improve quality of care and efficiency of care in Tennessee,” said Finance Commissioner Dave Goetz….
Aetna Contacts 65,000 After Web Site Data Breach
Jeremy Kirk reports: Insurance company Aetna has contacted 65,000 current and former employees whose Social Security numbers (SSNs) may have been compromised in a Web site data breach. The job application Web site also held names, phone numbers, e-mail and mailing addresses for up to 450,000 applicants, Aetna spokeswoman Cynthia Michener said. SSNs for those…
Tiversa Identifies Over 13 Million Breached Internet Files in the Past Year
From the Tiversa press release: Tiversa today announced the findings of new research that revealed 13,185,252 breached files emanating from over 4,310,839 sources on P2P file-sharing networks within a twelve month period from March 01, 2008 – March 01, 2009. […] The files analyzed included only those identified on behalf of Tiversa’s existing customer base…
UK: Lost laptop exposes thousands of pension records
John Leyden of The Register reports on the latest data protection cockup: A lost laptop containing the personal data of 109,000 Pensions Trust’s members has sparked the latest in a growing list of information security breach alerts. The missing machine was stolen from the offices of NorthgateArinso, suppliers of the Pensions Trust’s computerised pensions administration…