Hundreds of highly confidential medical documents including a parents’ plea for help for her mentally ill daughter have been found dumped in a nurse’s backyard. The documents, found in see-through recycle bags in easy reach of passers-by, contained sensitive information about patients from across South London including names, addresses and whether they had arthritis, bunions,…
Category: Paper
Police files found in dumpster
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of personal files from the Scranton Police Department were found unshredded in a dumpster, according to a news story on WNEP. “One or more files that should have been shred were thrown into the dumpster,” said Scranton Director of Public Safety Ray Hayes. He admitted that a mistake was made. Newswatch 16…
Tax-preparation docs found in dumpster
WOIA in Texas reports that San Antonio police are investigating how boxes full of unredacted personal information including Social Security numbers and financial information were sitting in the in the open in a dumpster. All of the paperwork was labeled “Century Income Tax.” WOAI reports that the owner of the firm has not returned any…
Code Blue: nurses’ details at risk
KIRO 7 investigated a report that 30-40 boxes containing personal information of nurses — “medical records, social security numbers, driver’s licenses, financial records, legal documents, bank records, W2s” — were being dumped in garbage cans of a local spice shop over the past few weeks: The files appear to belong to a company called Code…
Imperial breaches the DPA
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has become the latest NHS organisation to be required to sign an undertaking not to breach the Data Protection Act by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The undertaking says six laptops were stolen in two burglaries at St Mary’s Hospital, one of which was unencrypted even though it held patient…
ICO: NHS Lothian to improve security
NHS employees failed to comply with data security requirements according to an Undertaking, signed by James Barbour, the Chief Executive of NHS Lothian. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found NHS Lothian in breach of the Data Protection Act after an unencrypted memory stick was lost and some paper files were temporarily left in a…