Paris Cowan reports: Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim has ordered the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to apologise to one of its clients after it handed details of an ongoing dispute over to his employer. In a case that tests nearly every exemption to the Privacy Act’s non-disclosure provisions, Pilgrim knocked back repeated attempts by the DVA…
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Brigham and Women’s Hospital notifies patients after data stolen in armed robbery
Privacy Incident Notification for Brigham and Women’s Hospital Patients Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of patient information. Regrettably, this notice concerns an incident involving some of that information. On September 24, 2014, a laptop computer and cell phone were stolen from a BWH physician during an armed…
Ca: Western Health privacy breach lawsuit can proceed to next stage of certification of class action – court
Gary Kean reports: The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador has decided that a group of patients who had their health information inappropriately accessed by a Western Health employee have grounds to continue with a class action lawsuit against the health authority. Justice William Goodridge, who heard arguments last February from both the health authority…
$1.4M jury verdict against Walgreens for violating customer privacy upheld in appellate court (update)
As this blog noted in July 2013, a jury awarded a Walgreens customer $1.44 million after finding Walgreens and one of their pharmacists violated the customer’s privacy. In this case, a female pharmacist had looked up and shared the customer’s records when she suspected the female customer had shared a sexually transmitted disease with a man who was the customer’s ex-boyfriend and…
Rolling Stones settle suit after privacy breach
The AAP reports: The Rolling Stones were so upset personal matters were being made public they settled out of court with insurers over claims for cancelled shows in Australia and New Zealand, a spokesman for lead singer Mick Jagger says. The band scrapped the tour in March after Jagger’s girlfriend L’Wren Scott took her own…
Michigan Physician Pleads Guilty for Role in $19 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme
How were the Medicare beneficiaries whose information was used in this fraud scheme affected by records of diagnoses they didn’t have and services they neither needed nor received? A Detroit-area physician, who orchestrated the submission of fraudulent claims for physician home visits and directed fraudulent referrals for home health care by his employee physicians as…