Marianne Kolbasuk McGee reports: The Department of Health and Human Services has appointed Lucia Savage, an attorney at insurer United Healthcare, as the new chief privacy officer of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. ONC is best known for its work on guidelines for the HITECH Act’s electronic health records incentive program, but its projects are changing…
Lawyers Ask California's Supreme Court to Review Medical Data Breach Case
Marisa Kendall reports: It’s time for the state’s highest court to determine when to hold a medical care provider liable for compromised patient data, according to plaintiffs lawyers who lost a privacy case against Sutter Medical Foundation this summer. The lawyers argue state appellate courts are at odds over whether the theft of patient records…
Dropbox passwords leak: Hundreds of accounts hacked after third-party security breach (update – not Dropbox accounts)
Update: leaked login credentials claimed to be associated with Dropbox accounts are not Dropbox accounts, according to Dropbox. Rose Troup Buchanan reports: Hundreds of passwords to Dropbox accounts have been leaked in the latest security breach, with hackers threatening to release millions more account details in exchange for Bitcoin. Hackers, who were apparently able to access logins and…
South Korea at a crossroads with ID card, data theft losses
AP reports: After an avalanche of data breaches, South Korea’s national identity card system has been raided so thoroughly by thieves that the government says it might have to issue new ID numbers to every citizen over 17 at a possible cost of billions of dollars. The admission is an embarrassment for a society that…
Japan’s gov’t mulls beefing up regulations on exchange of personal data among database firms
Mainichi reports: The government is considering tightening regulations on the exchange of personal data among database firms, after a systems engineer allegedly stole a massive amount of customer information from correspondence education provider Benesse Holdings Inc. and sold it to three database companies. According to investigative sources, over 200 million customer data entries were leaked…
MI: Medical files found dumped in Oak Park
Lauren Podell reports: Medical files have been found dumped outside an Oak Park medical center where the doctor was convicted of Medicare fraud before passing away. Julius Williams told Local 4 he went to pick up a prescription over the weekend near his former doctor’s office on Coolidge Highway when he noticed boxes piled up…