An Ohio Supreme Court ruling could erode certain confidentiality protections afforded to patients’ medical records, physicians say. The case centered on whether a health insurer could discover patient records to support a billing fraud claim it brought against a doctor. Family physician William Schlotterer, DO, objected to providing his patients’ records to Medical Mutual of…
What About Former Employees?
When the Tyco Flow Control Americas office at in Houston was broken into over the weekend of June 6 and 7, burglars stole the Payroll Manager’s laptop computer and gained access to locked rooms that contained payroll and HR documents of current and some former employees. According to a letter sent by Holly Kriendler to…
NV’s New Encryption Law Made Moot?
Rebecca Herold of IT Compliance has a commentary on Nevada’s new encryption law and whether the state’s data breach law makes the encryption law moot. It begins: On May 30, 2009, Nevada enacted a new law, SB 227, which will basically replace NRS 597.970 in January 2010. In many ways the new law is an…
ID Theft Arrests in Durham NC (update 2)
Alamance County and Durham police have charged Alexis Brooke Faison with 10 counts of identity theft. Durham detectives believe Faison may be connected to at least 30 more cases of identity theft in the Durham area, according to a press release mentioned in a Times-News story on June 25th. The Herald-Sun subsequently reported that two…
Patent Rights and Civil Wrongs: The ACLU Lawsuit
[On May 12, and on] behalf of several medical associations, advocacy organizations, physicians, researchers, and individuals, the ACLU filed a lawsuit naming the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and Myriad Genetics among the defendants in a potentially historic patent case. The ACLU’s lawsuit ostensibly focuses on the legitimacy of the infamous BRCA1 and…
Update: Bord Gais Laptop Thefts
Personal details of more than 100,000 Bord Gais customers were on laptops stolen from the energy firm last month, significantly more than the 75,000 initially reported. Details of the full extent of the security breach are expected to emerge when the findings of an investigation into the laptop thefts are disclosed. Four laptops were stolen…