Dennis Melamed provides monthly HIPAA complaint statistics based reports by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR). It seems that not only did breach reports in general decline in 2009 relative to 2008, but privacy and security complaints to HHS also declined. Melamed reports: OCR received 7,116 complaints in 2009, a sharp decline from the…
Public Forum on National HIT Policy
Free Live and Archived Broadcast of Thursday 2/4 Public Forum on National HIT Policy 8:00 am – Noon eastern A national interactive public forum on the rollout of national HIT policy under HITECH, including “meaningful use,” EHR certification, and HIE. A free national Internet broadcast (live and archived for 6 months) of the joint plenary…
Americans say “NO” to medical database
Former Congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr writes: In his state of the union address last week, President Barack Obama continued to hammer at the so-called “healthcare crisis” the country faces. While the president’s tone was tempered a bit as a result of the fallout from the recent Senate race in Massachusetts, he continues…
Iowa racetrack and casino employee data on hacked server
The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission said Friday that its database containing licensing information of racetrack and casino employees had been compromised after a firewall was breached by an outside Internet address. A news release issued by the commission said that the breach took place Tuesday when one of the firewalls “was circumvented due to…
UK: Security company axed after leak of MPs’ expenses files
Jason Lewis reports: A security firm responsible for guarding some of Britain’s most sensitive Government documents, including the two Iraq War dossiers, has been axed following the damaging leak of the MPs’ expenses files. The move comes after a long-running internal investigation into who released the damaging material which led to Ministerial resignations and a…
Informant offers to sell names of tax dodgers (updated)
A secret informant has offered to sell the German taxman the names of 1,500 Germans who have funds hidden in Switzerland, a newspaper reported Saturday. The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said the unnamed whistleblower had supplied details of five accounts worth some €1 million ($1.4 million) in tax as proof and demanded €2.5 million for…