Greg Bordonaro reports: MidState Medical Center has begun sending letters to 93,500 patients whose personal information may have been compromised following the accidental loss of a computer hard drive, the hospital said in a letter to employees Tuesday. The misplaced hard drive, which has not yet been recovered, contains patient’s names, addresses, birthdates, social security…
Dutch Senate rejects electronic patients’ records
Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports: The Dutch Senate has unanimously rejected Health Minister Edith Schippers’ plan to introduce the Electronic Patient Dossier (EPD) nationwide. Under the scheme, people’s medical records would have been available to doctors and other health professionals throughout the country. However, the senators decided that the planned system’s security was not good enough…
WV: Identity theft plagues Kanawha Valley
Jared Hunt reports from West Virginia: Federal officials are investigating an identity theft scheme that has been draining the bank accounts of Kanawha Valley residents in recent weeks. Officials are urging residents to vigilantly check their credit and bank statements to make sure they haven’t been hit by this latest scheme. Ron Layton, resident agent…
Nurse allowed to resign in medical chart snooping case
Associated Press reports an update on the privacy breach at the U. of Iowa involving staff snooping on football players’ records: A nurse at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics who allegedly accessed confidential medical records of a university football player has been allowed to resign rather than be fired. A legal agreement made…
What should the headline on the Epsilon breach be?
By now, there have been thousands of news stories on the security breach at Epsilon, a Dallas-based email marketing service provider. Many of the headlines have incorporated the names of some of the firm’s biggest clients like Chase, Target, or Kroger. Many of the headlines have seemingly tried to frighten consumers into reading the story…
UK: Council printer mix up breached data protection laws
Probably everyone has accidentally left some papers in a shared printer at one time or another. But when papers containing sensitive personal data get scooped and included in a mailing to an uninvolved their party, you may wind up violating the Data Protection Act. According to the Information Commissioner’s Office, that’s pretty much what happened…