Category: Health Data

Bryan Garner reports: Martin Memorial completed an internal investigation regarding a privacy breach involving Stephen Schafer, a victim of a fatal shark attack on Feb. 3. […] Martin Memorial officials received a tip that hospital employees and possibly others took cell phone pictures of Schafer’s dead body and mailed them to others in violation of…

Mimi Jung reports: An alarming letter was sent to Charles Tomaras from the UW (University of Washington) Medical Center letting him know that someone had stolen his personal information, including his Social Security number, credit card number, birthdate and address….. The hospital says the information of up to 210 people could be compromised and thought…

This week, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began posting summaries of breach reports it has received as newly mandated by the HITECH Act. In commenting on the breaches, this site observed that some breaches simply stated “Private Practice” instead of the name of the…

Andy Sher reports: No identity theft or credit card fraud has been found stemming from the October theft of 57 computer hard drives containing BlueCross customers’ personal information, a company official told state lawmakers today. “No sir,” Clay Phillips, BlueCross’ director and associate general counsel for state affairs, told Sen. Ken Yager, R-Harriman. “We monitor…

I posted this yesterday to PogoWasRight.org but then it dawned on me today that since this involved medical information, I should have posted it here, too: A new ruling from the Ninth Circuit in Cooper v. FAA addresses the meaning of “actual damages” in the Privacy Act. The case arose when federal agencies shared information…