Michael Nock of Foley Road, Streetly, had a knee-replacement operation at Walsall’s Manor Hospital. He went home to recover. What happened next came as a surprise. “I suddenly got a brochure through the post from a company selling mobility scooters. At first I put it down to coincidence. […] NHS staff are forbidden to pass…
Author: Dissent
Did a privacy activist’s web site facilitate fraud?
Betty Ostergren of The Virginia Watchdog has been a passionate advocate for eliminating Social Security numbers from documents posted on the web by government agencies. To that end, she has occasionally posted examples of what she has found on publicly available web sites, a tactic that I have questioned while admiring her dedication and determination….
GAO: Food and Drug Administration Faces Challenges in Establishing Protections for Its Postmarket Risk Analysis System
From the report (pdf): The Sentinel system is still in the early planning stages, with key decisions about development and milestones yet to be made. In planning for Sentinel, FDA has held outreach meetings with stakeholders, established a senior management team to solicit input from agency components; established a working group to share information…
Government laptops stolen in Belfast
UTV News reports: An urgent investigation has been launched into what material was taken from the corporate human resources offices over the weekend. All the machines were password-protected, marked and serial numbers recorded. Detectives have been called in. A spokesman for the Department of Finance and Personnel said: “In view of the nature of corporate…
NHS Scotland loses patients’ medical history data
Computing.co.uk reports: The Scottish NHS has admitted to the loss of medical histories for 137 patients that were stored on a memory stick, in contravention of data protection rules. The admission comes just days after the Scottish parliament published a report recommending the devolved government should be more proactive ensuring compliance with security standards. Police…
Hundreds of Aviva customers notified of data breach
Aviva USA is notifying hundreds customers that their Social Security numbers may have been acquired after malware infected one of their computers. In a May 28 letter (pdf) to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, Aviva’s Chief Privacy Officer Carolyn Gee explained that the exposure occurred while the company “was conducting online research to locate…