Last month, this blog reported that the UK site of Lush cosmetics had been hacked. Three weeks later, Lush customers in Australia and New Zealand are being notified by email that those Lush sites were hacked as well. The breaches occur to be separate hacks and reportedly only affect those who placed orders online. The…
Patient privacy should be respected abroad and online
A news release from the University of Florida serves as a timely reminder: Taking an unauthorized photo of a patient and posting it on Facebook is a giant no-no for health-care providers, who follow strict federal guidelines protecting patient privacy. But what if the patient is a little girl in Ecuador receiving a vaccine from…
Bill would require paternity tests for newborns
The Associated Press reports: A bill introduced in the Kansas House would require every newborn in the state to be genetically tested to identify the child’s father. State Rep. Melody McCray Miller, a Democrat from Wichita, says the bill is intended to help men who have been named as a child’s father, or who want…
Healthcare Social Media Sites Neglect Privacy Protections
Nicole Lewis reports: As the Internet in general and social networking in particular are used as a point of reference for gathering and sharing health information, a study that examined 10 diabetes-focused social networking sites has found that the quality of clinical information, as well as privacy policies, significantly varied across these sites. Read more…
UK: Treasury does well out of local data breaches
Taxpayers’ money is being used to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds of fines imposed on councils for data protection breaches. In the past two months, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined councils more than £350,000 for falling foul of laws. Defending the decisions the ICO said the purpose of monetary penalties is to…
Health record privacy violation haunts VA worker, she says
Brian Bowling reports: The Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs Healthcare System is trying to use a technical violation of its leave policy to punish an employee who reported a violation of the federal health record privacy law, a union official said. “That’s about it in a nutshell,” said Keith Watson, president of American Federation of Government Employees…