Victoria Fletcher reports: Blood samples from millions of newborn babies are being stored without their parents’ knowledge, it emerged yesterday. The massive DNA files can be consulted by a range of organisations including the police, coroners and medical researchers, without having to ask the children’s families. In a sinister example of Britain’s slide into a…
Category: Uncategorized
Ie: HSE seeking legal advice on file disclosure
The Health Service Executive has said it is seeking legal advice on how to disclose files in relation to children in its care without breaching data protection laws. It comes as the Independent Review Group set up by the Minister for Children said it has not received a single file almost two months after being…
AU: Patient data under threat, say auditors
Mark Metherell reports: Federal government auditors have overruled Medicare, calling on the agency to improve security of patient details held by pharmacists. Patient information on the 200 million prescriptions pharmacists dispense each year are largely electronically held, which the Auditor-General, Ian McPhee, says ”continues to be an area of growing threats”. In an audit report…
Lawsuit: Red Flags Rule Violates Doctor/Patient Relationship
Cheryl Clark reports: Medical and osteopathic associations today sued the Federal Trade Commission for covering them under the Red Flags Rule, which will require them to start verifying their patients’ true identities before they agree to treat them, starting June 1. The lawsuit seeks to prevent the FTC from defining physicians as “creditors” whenever they…
UC Berkeley Asking Incoming Students For DNA
UC Berkeley is adding something a little different this year in its welcome package — cotton swabs for a DNA sample. In the past, incoming freshman and transfer students have received a rather typical welcome book from the College of Letters and Science’s “On the Same Page” program, but this year the students will be…
P2P networks a treasure trove of leaked health care data, study finds
Jaikumar Vijayan reports: Nearly eight months after new rules were enacted requiring stronger protection of health care information, organizations are still leaking such data on file-sharing networks, a study by Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business has found. In a research paper to be presented at an IEEE security symposium Tuesday, a Dartmouth College professor…