The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is about to rule whether health care entities will need to notify patients if their de-identified data — patient data that has been stripped of all potential for identifying individuals, which is often used for research and development — is breached. As it stands now, de-identified…
Category: Breaches
Exposed: Repair shops hack your laptops
Some computer repair shops are illegally accessing personal data on customers’ hard drives – and even trying to hack their bank accounts, a Sky News investigation has found. In one case, passwords, log-in details and holiday photographs were all copied onto a portable memory stick by a technician. […] Inside one of the documents copied…
The other end of the Abu Ghraib camera
Despite demands by human rights advocates that photos documenting abuse of military detainees be made public, the Senate last month passed legislation to block their release. The legislation is now before the House. President Obama supports these efforts. This is all goodnews. Classifying the photos would help protect those detainees’ basic rights to dignity and…
Germany adopts stricter data protection law
On July 3, 2009, the German Federal Parliament passed comprehensive amendments to the Federal Data Protection Act (the “Federal Act”). These amendments also passed the Federal Council on July 10, 2009, and the revised law will enter into force on September 1, 2009. The new amendments cover a range of data protection-related issues, including marketing,…