The American Civil Liberties Union urges the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health at today’s hearing to develop privacy and security standards at the same time the health care industry converts from paper to electronic patient records. The ACLU warns that without real patient controls and compensation for misused data, American medical records are…
UK: Stolen tapes contain sensitive data on Hampshire workers
Simon Carr reports in the Southern Daily Echo: Confidential tapes containing the personal and medical details of thousands of staff from Hampshire firms. The tapes contained highly sensitive information including details ranging from illnesses to home addresses. Thieves targeted a security van while it was transporting the tapes between offices to be backed up. The…
In the House of Representatives this morning
The Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health meets this morning at 10:00 am Eastern to discuss a draft health information technology bill proposed by Congressmen Dingel and Barton. You can watch it here (opens in new window).
UnitedHealthcare data breach leads to ID theft at UC Irvine
Robert McMillan reports in ComputerWorld: A data breach at United Healthcare Services Inc. has led to a rash of identity-theft crimes at the University of California, Irvine. To date, 155 graduate and medical students at the school have been hit by the scam, in which criminals file false tax returns in the victim’s name and…
Walter Reed admits breach of patient information
Officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are investigating how the personal information of 1,000 former patients was left unsecured on a hospital computer. Hospital officials said they were notified of the breach on May 21 by an outside company. Few details are available, but investigators say the information may have been disclosed via a…
UK: University employees' records stolen from security van
Details of more than 3,000 current and former employees of Birmingham City University were among 35,000 private health customer records stolen from a security van. Personal information including their home addresses, dates of birth, claims details and scanned letters of correspondence were stored on a computer tape stolen from the van. The tape containing the…