Melissa McEver reports in the Brownsville Herald: All it took was a quick Internet search to yield private medical information on more than two dozen Rio Grande Valley children. Until Thursday, the Web site of a children’s rehabilitation clinic had a link to spreadsheets containing the full names, phone numbers and insurance status of about…
Author: Dissent
Privacy and Public Health at Risk: Public Health Confidentiality in the Digital Age
By Myers, Julie Frieden, Thomas R; Bherwani, Kamal M; Henning, Kelly J: Public health agencies increasingly use electronic means to acquire, use, maintain, and store personal health information. Electronic data formats can improve performance of core public health functions, but potentially threaten privacy because they can be easily duplicated and transmitted to unauthorized people. Although…
Medical privacy still isn't protected (Letter to the Editor)
Seen in the The Baltimore Sun: The Sun‘s article on the Senate’s vote to bar discrimination based on the results of genetic testing (“Measure would bar use of information by insurers, employers,” April 25) failed to address the key problem with personal medical information in America: Why do insurers, employers and others have access to…
When UPMC wrist ID tells too much
Steve Twedt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports: Linda Berkley of Braddock was playing with her granddaughter Saturday evening when the infant grabbed the identification bracelet Mrs. Berkley had received earlier in the day at the UPMC Braddock emergency room. As she pulled her arm away, Mrs. Berkley glanced at the bracelet and was horrified by…
UCSF waited six months before telling patients of data breach
Elizabeth Fernandez of the San Francisco Chronicle reports: Information on thousands of UCSF patients was accessible on the Internet for more than three months last year, a possible violation of federal privacy regulations that might have exposed the patients to medical-identity theft, The Chronicle has learned. The information accessible online included names and addresses of…
Oops: a breach notification revealed too much
When Drexel University College of Medicine experienced a breach due to the theft of a computer, they notified states attorney general as required by various state laws. But because only one resident of Maryland was affected by the breach, Drexel included a copy of the notification letter to the patient when they notified the Maryland…