Earl Holland reports: A former nursing assistant was sentenced to five years in prison and must pay in excess of $8,000 in restitution for stealing the identities of her patients at a Salisbury retirement community. On Thursday, 27-year-old Tara C. Campbell of Crisfield pleaded guilty to two counts of theft less than $500 and one…
Category: Health Data
UK: Hospital lost patient data disks
The BBC reports: A hospital has lost 100 computer disks containing personal information about patients. North Wales NHS Trust is carrying out a review of its data security following the incident at Glan Clwyd hospital in Denbighshire last month. The disks, which were to be destroyed, are believed to have been disposed of “inadvertently” with…
NY: Misrouted medical faxes bedevil family
Marcele Rojas reports: Southeast resident Cathy Meyer reached her breaking point when she received a fax with a list of patients in Putnam Hospital Center’s psychiatric ward. The fax was from another department within the hospital, she said, seeking the patients’ medical charts. […] For more than a year, Meyer has received dozens of faxes…
More recent breaches we didn’t know about
Thanks to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office for posting breach notices online: Student Loan Xpress, Inc. reported (pdf) that the service provider for their student loans, American Education Services, inadvertently transmitted personal information on student loans to another lender that AES also has contracts with. The information may have included names, addresses, Social Security…
UK: Dental patient fraud pair jailed
A woman and her stepfather have been given jail terms for defrauding nearly £20,000 from patients at two dental practices in Glasgow. Receptionist Adele Ballantyne, 22, copied credit and debit card details and passed them to John Hill, 32, who then ordered goods for resale. Ballantyne was jailed for 12 months and Hill was sentenced…
Congress heard us! (commentary)
I’m first working my way through the provisions in the stimulus bill that relate to breaches and notifications. One of the recommendations that I and other privacy advocates had made was central notification and disclosure on a publicly available web site. They heard us. Here’s part of the new law: (3) NOTICE TO SECRETARY- Notice…