Reprinted from REPORT ON PATIENT PRIVACY, the industry’s most practical source of news on HIPAA patient privacy provisions. By Liana Heitin, Editor With many legislators, law enforcement officials, and privacy experts now calling it the fastest-growing type of crime, medical identity theft has emerged as a forefront issue for health care providers. And while ID…
(follow-up) Kr: Website not responsible for data theft
This is one of the breaches in the top 10 list, where I had previously noted that some sources said 18 million were affected by the hack, while Auction claimed 10.8 million. Whatever the correct number, the online service was found not to be responsible for the breach. Joong Ang Daily Reports: A local court…
Russian arrested in Kenya with 107 ATM cards
Bernard Momanyi reports from Nairobi: A man who claims to be a Russian was arrested in Nairobi on Thursday after he was found withdrawing money from an automated teller machine (ATM) while in possession of 107 fake bank cards. The man was arrested at the CFC Stanbic branch on Kimathi Street at about noon, police…
Medical records often held hostage
Elizabeth Cohen reports: For five days as her husband lay in his hospital bed suffering from kidney cancer, Regina Holliday begged doctors and nurses for his medical records, and for five days she never received them. On the sixth day, her husband needed to be transferred to another hospital, without his complete medical records. “When…
(follow-up) Ca: Durham told to encrypt health data on mobile devices
Ontario’s privacy commissioner is ordering Durham Region’s health officer to ensure medical data is encrypted on portable devices. The order follows an incident in December when the health data of more than 83,000 people who received H1N1 flu shots went missing. A nurse was taking a USB key containing the records to her car in…
Four women held in San Jose identity-theft scheme, DA’s office says
Lisa Fernandez reports: A team of South Bay authorities said they arrested four women suspected of stealing the identities of at least 100 victims in a ring headquartered at a Days Inn in San Jose. Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Amy Cornell said Wednesday that two of the women arrested Monday at the…