William A. Celey became the latest State Department employee to plead guilty to illegally accessing passport files. Celey had been charged with unauthorized computer access and will be sentenced in October. As reported on Examiner.com: In pleading guilty, Celey admitted that between June 22, 2004, and July 15, 2004, he logged onto the PIERS database…
Category: Breaches
NSW seeks laws to stop wave of ID frauds
Tough new laws aimed at clamping down on identity fraud are being drafted by the NSW government. Almost half a million Australians lost a combined $997 million to identity fraud in the last year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The ABS attributed the crime wave to the rapid expansion of internet technology,…
CVS, Walgreens settle with Indiana AG
Settlements have been reached between the Indiana Attorney General’s office and two pharmacy chains – CVS and Walgreens – to resolve data-breach complaints that customers’ medical information was improperly discarded in trash bins outside pharmacy stores. The agreement comes as the Attorney General begins a new concerted effort geared to address the growing problem of…
Après HITECH, le déluge (of reports)
Yesterday on phiprivacy.net, I posted a link to an article in the Journal of AHIMA that discusses how California officials were surprised at how many breach reports they have received since California’s new medical privacy breach reporting law went into effect on Jan. 1. Under the broadened reporting requirements whereby healthcare organizations in California are…