Kevin McCarthy reports: The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has fired a second shot at the Feds over its demand for backdoors in encryption systems. Following a blog post last month by the regulator’s CTO in which he outlined why he was glad to have strong firmware encryption after his laptop was stolen, today FTC Commissioner Terrell…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Even encrypted medical record databases leak information
Jeremy Kirk reports: A new study from Microsoft researchers warns that many types of databases used for electronic medical records are vulnerable to leaking information despite the use of encryption. The paper, due to be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security next month, shows how sensitive medical information on patients could be…
UCLA Health notifying patients of stolen laptop containing personal health information; third breach report in as many months?
Hard to believe, but UCLA Health is notifying patients of yet another data breach. From a notice issued today: UCLA Health is sending notification letters to 1,242 individuals about the theft of a laptop computer containing patient names, medical record numbers, and health information used to help prepare patient treatment plans. No social security numbers,…
Duty of confidentiality trumps your desire to defend your reputation
Remember when Prime Healthcare and Shasta Regional Medical Center were fined by federal and state agencies for breaching patient privacy? They had willfully disclosed patient details to the media after the media had reported the patient’s complaint about them. At the time, I noted that just because a patient discloses information, that does not give the covered entity the…
“Small” breach, big impact, redux
In November 2013, I blogged about the case of a privacy breach at Northern Inyo Hospital that was so devastating to the patient that she was going to move away. The breach was a willful insider breach that impacted a custody dispute. That same year, and unbeknownst to most people, there was a lawsuit filed over another insider…
More reaction to the Third Circuit opinion in FTC v. Wyndham
Two more commentaries site visitors interested in this issue may wish to read: What Exactly Does Reasonable Mean? – Josephine Wolff, Slate The FTC’s Wyndham victory is good for privacy but confusing for businesses – Stacey Higginbotham, Fortune