Brian Krebs reports that what’s already been a bad month for California residents in terms of data breaches just got worse: The California Department of Motor Vehicles appears to have suffered a wide-ranging credit card data breach involving online payments for DMV-related services, according to banks in California and elsewhere that received alerts this week about compromised cards…
The debate over medical monitoring
Evan Axelbank reports: Ernestine Marshall can’t even go to the bathroom without someone knowing. “I didn’t know how closely they were watching me until I received a phone call, and I was like, whoa! Ok!” she said. The diabetic and MS patient’s home is outfitted by insurer, Humana, with sensors that keep track of when…
Handling of community mental health center medical records raises HIPAA concerns
A small item of local news in Lincoln, Nebraska caught my eye this morning. And the more I read, the more concerned I became. Kevin Abourezk reports on the Lincoln Journal Star: Lancaster County officials think they may have found a way to move more than 200 boxes of medical records left in the basement…
Wherever you look, there’s misuse of access to databases, Saturday edition
No matter what sector, no matter what country, there are employees who can’t seem to resist misusing their access to databases for snooping or personal reasons. Today’s example involves the Gardai in Ireland: Confidential information on six “high-profile” personalities on the Garda Pulse computer system was accessed “inappropriately” by members of the force. The multiple…
Settlement of Lawsuit against Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Former Vendor Gets Tentative Approval
Back in August 2011, Stanford Hospital & Clinics (SHC) disclosed that medical records for 20,000 emergency room patients, including names and diagnosis codes, had been exposed on a public website due to the actions of a former billing contractor’s employee who, seeking help converting the data, had uploaded the file on the “Student of Fortune” website. Both…
Current and former Weather Shield employees continue to battle identity theft
Just a quick update to the Weather Shield case – where employees have been victims of tax refund fraud for the past three years, although Weather Shield says there is no evidence that they had a breach: so far this year, there have been 24 cases of tax refund fraud. And for the life of me,…