Schilling Show reports: The results of an annual school survey administered by Western Albemarle High School (WAHS) were inadvertently exposed to the public in a serious breach of security and student privacy protocol. In a post-breach letter to parents, WAHS principal, Darah Bonham, explained that the school’s Peer Nomination Survey “asks students to identify peers…
Category: Exposure
Follow-up: Mecklenburg Co. not fined for releasing personal information of health department patients
WSOC-TV reports: The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights did not fine Mecklenburg County for inadvertently providing Channel 9 with the personal medical information of thousands of health department patients in 2017. Records show Mecklenburg County self-reported the potential HIPAA violation on May 4, 2017. In March 2017, in…
NZ: IRD privacy breach raises data handling concerns
Nine to Noon reports: Inland Revenue’s data protection protocols are being questioned after a woman received information about a stranger’s child support in a copy-and-paste error. The Wellington woman got a letter from Inland Revenue addressed to her that included the full name of a father who was paying child support, and his child. She…
TX: Statement and Frequently Asked Questions about the 2018 ERS OnLine Security Incident
From the Employees Retirement System of Texas, this breach information notice. Note that this was reported to HHS with ERS listed as a health plan, and the breach was reported as affecting 1,248,263 members, but also note that no medical or health information was reportedly involved. On August 17, 2018, the Employees Retirement System of…
Work Study Documents Accidentally Released to College Community
Saadya Chevan reports: Last April, the College’s Financial Aid office uploaded and accidentally made visible to students, faculty, and staff two confidential documents containing federal work-study (FWS) balances of 107 students from two Spring 2018 pay-periods. The documents also reveal by implication that all of these students had applied for and received financial aid awards…
Tumblr’s ‘recommended blogs’ feature exposed user data
Julia Alexander reports: A security bug that hit Tumblr’s recommended blogs module may have exposed users’ private information, according to an open letter. Information like email addresses, passwords, IP addresses, and self-reported locations may have become exposed due to the bug if individual accounts were hit. It’s unclear if the bug affected individual accounts, according…