While employees in the UK can seemingly only face fines for exceeding authorized access or stealing health information, that’s not the case in Canada. CBC News reports that a former Eastern Health employee has pleaded not guilty to unlawfully obtaining health information. The incident has drawn a lot of media attention since it was first…
Category: Health Data
UK: Man made redundant fined for stealing sensitive information
Infosecurity-Magazine.com reports on an insider breach where the consequences just don’t seem severe enough. The breach occurred on April 28, 2011, and was prosecuted by the Information Commissioner’s Office under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act: When he learned that he was being made redundant from his position as Community Health Promotions Manager at…
Idaho State University Settles HIPAA Security Case for $400,000
Idaho State University (ISU) has agreed to pay $400,000 to the U.S. Department of Health Human Services (HHS) to settle alleged violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule. The settlement involves the breach of unsecured electronic protected health information (ePHI) of approximately 17,500 patients at ISU’s Pocatello Family…
More additions to HHS's breach tool
Two updates within a week? The HHS breach tool is getting a workout. Here is what was added today: Sovereign Medical Group, LLC in New Jersey reported that 27,800 were affected by a breach on October 10, 2012. HHS’s breach tool codes the incident as “Theft, Hacking/IT Incident”, Network Server,” which probably means a hack,…
Update: Details on the Delta Dental breach
The other day, in blogging about recent updates to HHS’s breach tool, I noted an entry from Delta Dental of Pennsylvania involving ZDI: Delta Dental of Pennsylvania reported that their business associate, ZDI, suffered a breach involving the loss of paper records for 14,829 patients. The breach occurred on March 20. I was unable to find…
NY: Personal Files From Erie County Social Services Found Discarded
WGRZ reports: The Erie County Comptroller’s office says an audit has found copies of residents confidential personal information left in open areas that are accessible to the public. Some the information in the records includes birth certificates, social security cards, and medical records. The comptroller says the records were found during an ongoing audit of…