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An employee — former employee
— of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human
Services found out the hard way after transferring the information
of more than 228,000 Medicaid beneficiaries to his personal email
account. The data included Medicare numbers (which include Social
Security numbers as part of the identifier) linked to the
beneficiaries names. The Department's response? "[T]he
employee has been fired." Not only was Christopher Lykes, Jr.
fired, he has also been charged by the South Carolina Law
Enforcement Division with 5 counts of criminal violation of
confidentiality laws.
Compliance and privacy officers should feel free to print out
the article from the Charleston Post and Courier or the Greenville News as a "teachable
moment" to discourage everyone's favorite secure email
workaround.
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The 2010 theft of an unencrypted laptop containing confidential health care information made front-page news in 2013, not because a huge number of patients were affected, but for the exact opposite reason.
Identity theft is a serious threat. In 2012, more than 12.6 million adults became victims of identity theft in the U.S.1 And the costs have been astronomical.
On April 22 Verizon released its 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), which has since 2008 become a leading annual survey of data breaches, with participants across the globe.
Increasingly, privacy is a big concern in app development. California and other jurisdictions are ramping up enforcement efforts around existing privacy laws.
Understanding the complexities of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules is often a challenge for health care providers and consumers.
Any company that collects personal data from consumers should take proactive steps to have appropriate legal counsel review its data security practices, as well as its terms of service or privacy practices, to identify any potential problem areas.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published on its website a series of factsheets designed to educate consumers unfamiliar with their rights under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules.
FTC On The Prowl, And Businesses Looking For Guidance On New COPPA Changes
