Paul Lamapthakis writes in Perth Now: CONFIDENTIAL patient details are being left on old computers dumped in an open skip bin in a busy laneway at Royal Perth Hospital. Personal information, including patient names and addresses, dates of birth, medical conditions and patient numbers, was accessed with ease by The Sunday Times this week. Sources…
Category: Health Data
U.S. Health Agency Forbids Sensitive Data On Apple MacBooks
Paul McDougall reports in InformationWeek: In the wake of a widely publicized security breach that left thousands of patient records exposed, the federal government’s National Institute of Health is forbidding all employees who use Apple’s MacBook laptops from handling sensitive data as of Friday, InformationWeek has learned. Employees at the health agency who store medical…
UK: Sick-leave papers left in street
The BBC reports: A confidential document containing the sickness records of staff at Plymouth City Council has been found on a street outside a pub. A passer-by handed the paperwork to a local newspaper. It contained general staff sickness data from six months ago and included the names of 15 staff with personnel numbers and…
Privacy concerns overblown? I think not… (commentary)
Over in her blog, Well, on the New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope recently blogged about the recent disclosure that an employee at UCLA had peeked at Farrah Fawcett’s records. In response to her blog, one commenter, “SavvyDoc,” commented that it was a “HUGE” invasion of privacy and the employee should have reprimanded (just “reprimanded,” SavvyDoc?),…
Privacy advocate's health data is stolen
The Associated Press reports: If there’s one person whose medical records you wouldn’t want to lose track of, it’s the co-chairman of the congressional caucus that focuses on protecting consumers’ privacy. But that’s whose medical records went missing. Rep. Joe Barton was one of 3,000 patients whose records may have been breached when a National…
First Britney, Now Farrah: More Privacy Issues at UCLA Hospital
Jacob Goldstein writes in The Wall Street Journal: LA is a company town, and some employees at UCLA Medical Center seem to be having a tough time keeping their noses out of movie stars’ business. The med center fired more than a dozen employees and disciplined others, including six physicians, for unauthorized looks at Britney…