In what appears to be yet another breach involving paper records, Jay F. Marks of The Oklahoman reports that the Oklahoma Department of Human Services has opened an investigation into how a child welfare worker’s records ended up in possession of a local news station, KWTV-9. The records, which included names, Social Security numbers, contact…
A bug in Google Docs leads to unintended file sharing
Richard de Vries explains on Slashdot: I work for a small Dutch company that uses Google Apps. This means that we can share documents with users within our domain (www.deondernemers.nl), as well as @gmail.com accounts or other Apps-domains. About three weeks ago, we discovered that some fifteen documents and spreadsheets were unintentionally shared with a…
IN: Hotel discards unshredded customer records in dumpster
Liza Danver of WISH-TV in Indiana reports that the Homestead Studio Suites hotel in Indianapolis dumped unshredded hotel guest records into their dumpster, where they were noticed by a guest who contacted the news team. The records appeared to be several years’ old, and included names, home addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and yes, complete…
New Mexico Electronic Medical Records Law Ensures Patient Privacy
The New Mexico Senate passed an electronic medical record initiative of Governor Bill Richardson’s today that would protect patients’ privacy. Sen. Peter Wirth sponsored SB 278, the Electronic Medical Records Act that would require security and privacy protections associated with the use of electronic medical records. The bill now heads to House committees. Read more…
ID: Computer Disk with Personal Information of Site Employees Lost
Personal information for thousand of current and former Idaho National Laboratory employees may be at risk. The Department of Energy’s Office of Health, Safety and Security said a computer disk containing information like first and last name, date of birth and social security numbers, was lost during shipment on January 30. […] While in its…
CA: Lawmaker: Consumers need details in data breach warnings
Elinor Mills of Cnet reports: Six years after California enacted the country’s first data breach notification law, many state residents have received letters warning them that their data was exposed by a breach but usually they don’t know how or how long, experts said at a privacy conference on Friday. That would change with the…