Thousands of Oklahomans’ Social Security numbers may be listed online for anyone to see and they don’t even know it. Pottawatomie County posts home sale and mortgage information on its Web site, but some home owners said the county is getting too personal about open records. “What the public needs to realize is, for years,…
Author: Dissent
Minnesota offers new controls on newborn blood tests
The Minnesota Department of Health announced new measures Friday designed to address concerns that a program of blood screening for Minnesota newborns could violate patient and family privacy rights. In a key step, the department will propose legislation this year giving it the right to keep infants’ blood samples for two years, as part of…
CO: New reports of “skimming” in the Grand Valley
Grand Junction Police are looking into a number of reports of “skimming” incidents around the Grand Valley. This is the second time in as many months police have seen a rash of reports pour into the department. […] The GJPD says at least 17 new victims have come forward, with a dollar loss per victim…
KS: JoCo deputies shut down alleged identity theft ring
George Diepenbrock reports: Johnson County Sheriff’s officers arrested eight people Friday morning at a De Soto business and another person in Olathe as part of an alleged identity theft ring. Master Deputy Tom Erickson, a sheriff’s spokesman, said seven people were arrested on identity theft charges and two other men were arrested on charges of…
GA: Tax prep mistake puts woman’s identity at risk
A woman in Savannah who went to a Jackson Hewitt for help preparing her taxes got a phone call the next day from a stranger, telling her that all her documents — including her personal information, copies of her license, social security number and her children’s social security numbers — had been sent to a…
Hospital Addresses Online Privacy Mistake
When a former patient at West Penn hospital went online to pay her bill, she discovered that she could access 85 other patients’ information, including their names, addresses, medical procedures and costs. When the hospital did not reply to two emails she sent alerting them to the problem, she went to a news station, and…