Genevieve Bookwalter reports: Realizing it did not have the necessary votes to pass, Assemblyman Bill Monning on Tuesday shelved his bill that would have reined in the sale of doctors’ prescription records for marketing purposes. Monning said he might reintroduce the bill, aimed at big pharmaceutical companies, in January if he can drum up enough…
Blue Cross Mistake Releases Personal Info of 12K Members
From the press release: Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI) today announced that personal information belonging to approximately 12,000 BlueCHiP for Medicare members was inadvertently contained in a filing cabinet donated with other surplus office furniture to a local nonprofit organization. The filing cabinet mistakenly contained completed BlueCHiP for Medicare Health Surveys…
Recovered: Stolen data on 3 million student loan borrowers
Paul Walsh reports: Stolen personal information on more than 3 million student loan borrowers was recovered in connection with the discovery in a Minneapolis alley of two safes containing CDs and floppy discs and sat in a police evidence room for weeks before authorities knew just what they had, state officials said Friday. […] The…
California Senate again OKs breach notification law update
Dan Kaplan reports: The California Senate has approved a bill that would update the state’s pioneering data breach notification law, the lawmaker who introduced the legislation announced Friday. The bill from Democratic Sen. Joe Simitian is a reintroduction of the same measure that he proposed last year, but which was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Arnold…
Police send Reg hack CRB check database
If you’re going to have a data gaffe, try to avoid having a reporter be the recipient…. Chris Williams of The Register reports: Police face accusations of incompetence after accidentally emailing a file detailing the results of thousands of criminal records checks to a Register journalist. The author of the email at Gwent Police is…
Previously unreported breaches in the healthcare sector
Earlier today, I posted some breaches that had been reported to the NYS Consumer Protection Board during the period September 1 – December 31, 2009, and for the beginning of this year. The state only posted summaries of the breaches, so I do not have details, but thought that the breaches should be noted. From…