James D. Wolf Jr. of the Post-Tribune reported today that up to 860 patients who used the City of Valparaiso Fire Department ambulance service last year would be receiving breach notification letters from ADPI. You remember the ADPI breach, of course. I first reported on it November, 2012, when I also started compiling a list…
Category: Health Data
Advocate Medical Group notifying 4 million patients after burglars snatch unencrypted computers
Advocate Medical Group and its parent, Advent Healthcare, may have just bought themselves a heap of problems. Storing more than 20 year-old personally identifiable data including Social Security numbers on unencrypted computers with less than strong physical security doesn’t bode well for any investigation by HHS or Illinois’s Attorney General. (corrected name on medical group)
Personal data for 4 million patients at risk after burglars snatch computers with Advocate Medical Group's patient information
Peter Frost and Julie Wernau of the Chicago Tribune report than 4 million patients of Advocate Medical Group may be at risk of ID theft after four computers were stolen during a burglary last month at Advocate’s administrative building on West Touhy Avenue in Park Ridge. Advocate Medical Group is part of Advocate Health Care….
UK: Islington Council hit with monetary penalty after 2,375 residents' personal details published online
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has served Islington Council with a monetary penalty of £70,000 after personal details of over 2,300 residents were released online. The information was inadvertently released in response to a freedom of information request, and revealed sensitive personal information relating to residents’ housing needs, including details of whether they had a history of…
Lessons learned from earlier breaches left Beth Israel Deaconess better prepared to protect patient privacy after the Boston bombings
A data breach that cost Beth Deaconess Medical Center in Boston over $500,000 in costs seems to have paid off when the hospital found itself with high-profile patients whose privacy needed protection: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the Boston bombing victims. CIO John Halamka explains how Deloitte’s recommendations to them after a laptop theft and another data leak left…
Colorado medical marijuana patients protest privacy breaches
Kristen Wyatt of Associated Press reports: Medical marijuana patients asked Colorado health authorities on Wednesday to destroy and rebuild the state’s 107,000-person marijuana patient registry because of security breaches. The Board of Health unanimously rejected the emergency petition. But officials expressed alarm about a recent state audit showing the Colorado Department of Health and Environment…