Consumer Watchdog today called on the Health and Human Services Department to repeal a rule that allows health care providers and insurers to decide whether consumers must be notified when the security of their electronic confidential health information has been breached. In a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy group…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Knowing or reckless misuse of personal data – introducing custodial sentences
From the UK Ministry of Justice: Reference Number : CP22/09 Status: Open Open date: 15 October 2009 Close date: 07 January 2010 A consultation on exercising the power to provide for custodial sanctions for those found guilty of knowingly or recklessly obtaining, disclosing, selling or procuring the disclosure of personal data without the consent of…
Call centre recordings could breach payment card industry security rules
From Out-Law.com: More than 95% of call centres were found to store customers’ credit card details in recordings of phone conversations in breach of industry rules, according to a survey conducted by a call recording technology company. Veritape said that when it talked to 133 call centre managers only 39% of them knew about industry…
Audit of DRS data breach completed
Patricia Daddona reports: An audit of a 2007 data breach of state taxpayer’s personal information on a stolen laptop shows the state took too long to address the situation but has since made strides to prevent future incidents. Two years ago, some 106,000 Connecticut taxpayers’ names and Social Security numbers were compromised when an employee,…
Schwarzenegger vetoes Simitian’s privacy protection bill
Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed State Senator Joe Simitian’s (D-Palo Alto) Senate Bill 20. The bill would have strengthened and updated California’s landmark privacy protection law that requires businesses and state agencies to notify residents when sensitive personal information is lost or stolen from their databases. “I’m surprised as well as disappointed by the Governor’s veto,“ said…
Big-Box Breach: The Inside Story of Wal-Mart’s Hacker Attack
Kim Zetter reports: Wal-Mart was the victim of a serious security breach in 2005 and 2006 in which hackers targeted the development team in charge of the chain’s point-of-sale system and siphoned source code and other sensitive data to a computer in Eastern Europe, Wired.com has learned. Internal documents reveal for the first time that…