There’s a follow-up to a breach reported recently in this blog. John Harding reports: Island Health is apologizing for a breach of privacy that put personal information of its clients up for sale at a local thrift shop. The NEWS broke the story of the breach in its Thursday edition. A local woman purchased file…
B.C. civil servant fired over privacy breach was rehired Monday
Cindy Harnett reports the latest development in a privacy breach affecting millions of Canadians whose data were shared with researchers without their consent. In the first public settlement to arise out of a sweeping two-year Health Ministry investigation, a B.C. civil servant was rehired Monday. Robert Neil Hart, one of seven who lost jobs as…
AU: Thousands of university academic union members made public
Julie Hare reports: The names and details of thousands of university academic union members have been accidentally made public. Lists of names, contact details and positions of the National Tertiary Education Union‘s members at five universities appear to have been collated with the intention of contacting each person to solicit funds to support a campaign…
Twitter tested as monitor of HIV risk
Bernie Monegain reports: A new UCLA-led study suggests that real-time social media, such as Twitter could be used to track HIV and drug related behavior to detect potential outbreaks – and ultimately, as a tool for prevention efforts. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Preventive Medicine, suggests it may be possible to predict sexual risk…
AppleCare Insurance notifying insurance applicants after Golden Outlook agent's laptop is stolen
AppleCare Insurance is notifying some insurance applicants that their unencrypted PHI was on a laptop stolen from an agent. In a letter signed by Michael Blea, VicePresident/General Manager, they explain: We are writing to let you know about a privacy issue involving some of your personal information. On January 1, 2014, a licensed insurance agent of…
St. Joseph Health notifies patients of HIPAA breach due to failure to redact patient names from file sent to investment firm
St. Joseph Health reports that it experienced a privacy breach on February 18 when an employee neglected to delete a tab in an Excel spread sheet that contained patients’ names before sending the data to an investment firm preparing a proposal for St. Joseph Health. SJH’s letter to those affected explains: St. Joseph Health provides central…