Matthew Heller writes: After nearly six years of litigation, an Idaho jury will now hear a high-stakes case that pits child protection laws against the right of a couple to decide whether their infant daughter should have a spinal tap test for meningitis. The long-awaited trial will focus on a critical five-hour period which began…
Category: Uncategorized
Swiss parliament reject giving UBS client data to US news
Swiss lawmakers yesterday took upon themselves to safeguard the citadel of the country’s secretive banking system as they rejected a deal in parliament to hand over 4,450 names of wealthy Americans who held secret offshore accounts with Swiss bank UBS. Switzerland’s lower house rejected a bill to approve the settlement arrived at between the governments…
Embedding Privacy into Health Information Technology: An Absolute Must
A presentation by Ann Cavoukian, Ph.D., Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ontario, Canada at the MD Physician Services User Conference on Embedding Privacy into Health Information Technology, June 4. You can see the PowerPoint here. It contains links to helpful brochures as well as some case examples.
UK: 8,000 people’s details lost in transit in Lampeter
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found Lampeter Medical Practice to be in breach of the Data Protection Act, after an unencrypted memory stick containing the personal details of 8,000 patients was reported lost to the privacy watchdog. In March 2010, a member of staff downloaded a database containing patient details in contravention of practice…
Web photos of woman with HIV prompt lawsuit
Eric Frazier reports: An HIV-positive Union County woman let a drug company take pictures of her for an HIV patients’ magazine, but was shocked to later find the pictures and details about her situation had been published on the Internet – without her permission, she says. The woman filed suit in federal court in Charlotte…
WPF comments on possible changes to HIPAA privacy rule; requests more patient access to audit logs
Oops — I missed this announcement last week from the World Privacy Forum: The World Privacy Forum filed comments with the US Department of Health and Human Services today in response to its Request for Information about possible changes to the HIPAA health privacy rule. WPF strongly supported patients’ current right to request a history…