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…
Category: Exposure
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…
UK: Court documents found in middle of road
David Mills reports: A file of confidential documents relating to an ongoing court case have been found scattered across a road by a member of the public. Around 100 muddied A4 sheets were found near the Waldo Road tip in Bromley at the junction of Homesdale Road and Waldo Road at around 9am on Tuesday…
Delaware Insurance Commissioner fines Blue Cross $150,000 for privacy violations
Keith L. Martin provides a follow-up to a breach reported at the beginning of December. Delaware’s insurance commissioner seems to have moved quickly on this case: BlueCross BlueShield of Delaware is hoping to return an early Christmas gift by state insurance commissioner Matt Denn: a fine of $150,000. Following a Dec. 24 hearing, Denn levied…
Pat Fitzgerald Boots One
In a remarkable screw-up, a Department of Justice official today accidentally distributed to the media a document containing the names of nearly 20 confidential witnesses interviewed during a federal probe targeting the operators of a fraudulent investment scheme. In announcing felony charges against two men for their roles in an alleged $15 million Ponziesque swindle,…
UK: Derriford Hospital’s data losses revealed
Confidential data from Derriford Hospital has been lost or stolen 17 times during the past two years, health chiefs have admitted. The theft of seven hospital laptops, patient blood results being sent to the wrong address and members of the public accessing sensitive files are among data problems recorded since January 2007. The hospital revealed…