On January 5, 2015, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office S that Safeway Inc. (“Safeway”) has agreed to pay $9.87 million to settle claims that the company unlawfully disposed of customer medical information and hazardous waste in violation of California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act and Hazardous Waste Control Law. In a series of waste inspections from 2012 to…
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Saskatchewan employee snooping case: do two privacy wrongs make a right?
Tamara L. Hunter of Davis LLP writes: In November 2014, the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner (“SIPC”) issued an Investigation Report (No. 088/2013) in a case involving employee “snooping” in personal health records held by the Regina Qu’Appelle Regional Health Authority (the “RQRHA”). The case raises interesting questions about how far a public body should…
Turkish citizenry at massive risk of medical ID theft
Medical ID theft is a huge problem in Turkey, it seems, due to inadequate data security for government servers. Read more on BGN.
UK: Mitochondrial DNA donors granted anonymity in draft legislation
Rachel Brown reports: Regulations to legalise and govern the use of mitochondrial donation techniques have been laid down before the UK Parliament. […] The draft regulations state that fertility clinics will require a new licence to offer the techniques. They also state that it will be up to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to decide whether a treatment can go…
In Ontario, hundreds of hospital privacy violations go unreported
Olivia Carville reports: Five staff members snooped into the medical records of 22 patients at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health last year. A clinician from St. Michael’s Hospital posted an inappropriate comment on Facebook about a patient’s behaviour during a healthcare procedure. While standing in line for pizza, a Toronto East General Hospital…
23andMe Gives Pfizer DNA Data as Startup Seeks Growth
Caroline Chen reports: 23andMe Inc., the genetic-testing startup backed by Google Inc. (GOOG), is sharing DNA data on about 650,000 individuals with Pfizer Inc. (PFE), to help find new targets to treat disease and to design clinical trials. The collaboration with Pfizer is the broadest announced so far in 23andMe’s ambitious plan to become a repository for humanity’s…