Politics in Minnesota reports that the Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB) accidentally revealed employees’ home towns instead of “town of duty station” in response to a freedom of information law request that also requested state employees’ name, salary, job title, and agency. The information was posted to a web site by whoever had requested it,…
Category: U.S.
Coleman campaign donors warned about possible breach
The Associated Press is reporting that Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman has asked for a federal investigation into whether his Senate campaign donors’ confidential data have been breached. The campaign first became aware of the possibility of a breach in January but their investigation at the time did not uncover any unauthorized access to the information….
Florida couple fed up over medical fax flap
Laura Kadechka reports on a Tampa couple who have been received misdirected faxes containing pharmacy and medical information for over two years, despite their having contacted the pharmacies and medical clinics to tell them of the error. The doctor who had had their phone number had changed it two years ago. Not wholly surprising, when…
Pointer: State Laws Require Secure Personal Data
Nick Akerman and Melissa J. Krasnow have an article in The National Law Journal: Connecticut, Massachusetts and Nevada recently enacted laws requiring businesses to institute certain compliance measures to secure personal information that can be used to perpetrate identity theft. The Massachusetts law applies to a business located anywhere in the United States that stores…
Binghamton University’s “security” for student records?
Robert Glass of WHRW News reports on a breach waiting to happen: In a titanic breach of security, Binghamton University kept payment information for every student, possibly dating back at least ten years in a storage area next to one of the most trafficked lecture halls on campus, behind a door that was not only…
CA: Stolen police laptops had access to county data system
Laura Norton of The Press Democrat reports that four laptops with access to personal information on the department’s more than 1,000 employees were stolen from Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department police vehicles. While the laptops were in the police vehicles, they could access the county data system, although there is no indication that the thieves did…