What would you say if your employer told you it needed your height, weight, body fat percent and other personal information for health insurance purposes? That’s what CVS is beginning to do. The company is telling workers who use its health insurance to have a wellness review done or pay up. CVS says the information…
Category: Uncategorized
NZ: Privacy Commissioner amends health code to protect newborn blood samples
Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff has strengthened the Health Information Privacy Code 1994 to improve legal protections around newborn babies’ bloodspot samples. These samples are collected as part of a national newborn metabolic screening programme, also called the heelprick or Guthrie Test. The samples are held permanently unless parents request their return. The amendment will restrict…
Sparks details attack and data theft
From their press release: The company behind Sparks, the app that is designed to help you connect with and meet new people nearby with whom you have shared interests, and which was first presented at SXSW in 2012, has given details of an attempted Denial of Service attack allegedly undertaken by an employee of their…
Media should not have quoted from psychologist's letter – OpEd
On March 13, the Iowa City Press-Citizen published a front-page story that quoted from a psychologist’s letter about a patient seeking a gun permit. That patient was subsequently involved in a standoff with police in which he shot and injured three North Liberty police officers, and he was shot and killed by police. In response to…
Fake fingers fool punch-in clock in Brazil
WLS-TV/DT reports: The Brazilian newspaper O Globo is reporting that a doctor in Sao Paulo was arrested after being caught in the act of using fake fingers made of silicone and imprinted with real finger prints to defraud a hospital’s biometric punch-in clock. The news report says the doctor, Thauane Nunes Ferreira, was detained and…
Google launches site to help webmasters of hacked sites
Juan Carlos Perez reports: Google has launched a site for webmasters whose sites have been hacked, something that the company says happens thousands of times every day. The new site features articles and videos designed to help webmasters identify, diagnose and recover from hacks. Read more on Computerworld.