Tresa Baldas reports: Free Wi-Fi at Starbuck’s helped produce $1.8 million in bogus tax refunds for some Detroit customers. That’s the latest identity theft tale unfolding in federal court, where two Detroit women pleaded guilty today to running a tax scheme. According to federal officials, the plan involved stealing the identities of dead people to…
UK: ICO will take no futher action against ambulance service
The Daily Echo has a follow-up on a previously noted breach: A watchdog will take no further action against South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) after personal details of its staff were accidentally posted online. Confidential details including sexuality, ethnicity and religion of nearly 3,000 of its staff were mistakenly published on the service’s website in October. Now the…
MA: Twin Sisters Charged with Stealing Mental Health Professionals' Information to Defraud Federal, State, Local Agencies
Here’s another case of identity theft for fraud. In this case, the names and license numbers of mental health professionals were misused to defraud Lawrence Public Schools, UMass Medical School, Medicare, and Medicaid. From the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office: BOSTON – Twin sisters who formerly lived in Burlington have been indicted and arrested in connection with…
Connecticut Attorney General Wants Apple To Answer Questions About How The Apple Watch Stores Your Personal Health Data
Sam Colt reports: Connecticut’s attorney general has called for a meeting with Apple over concerns about the privacy of health data collected by the Apple Watch. “When new technologies emerge in consumer markets they inevitably lead to new questions, including questions about privacy,” Attorney General Jepsen said. Apple has already said that it will not…
Monthly reports to Congress show VA still experiencing hundreds of breaches each month
The Veterans Administration continues to struggle with securing veterans’ personal and protected health information, as its monthly reports to Congress reflect. First, consider the sheer number of different types of incidents reported to Congress for the month of August: Total number of Internal Un-encrypted E-mail Incidents 92 Total number of Mis-Handling Incidents 114 Total number…
Aventura Hospital notifies 82,601 patients of possible data theft; third theft incident in 2 years
A breach entry added to HHS’s public breach tool last week reveals that 82,601 Aventura Hospital and Medical Center patients may have had their identity information stolen by an employee of their business associate, Valesco Ventures. At the time of this publication, there is no statement or notification on Aventura’s web site. PHIprivacy.net was, however, able to find a Legal Notice published in…