Thousands of Oklahomans’ Social Security numbers may be listed online for anyone to see and they don’t even know it. Pottawatomie County posts home sale and mortgage information on its Web site, but some home owners said the county is getting too personal about open records. “What the public needs to realize is, for...
A woman in Savannah who went to a Jackson Hewitt for help preparing her taxes got a phone call the next day from a stranger, telling her that all her documents — including her personal information, copies of her license, social security number and her children’s social security numbers — had been sent to...
When a former patient at West Penn hospital went online to pay her bill, she discovered that she could access 85 other patients’ information, including their names, addresses, medical procedures and costs. When the hospital did not reply to two emails she sent alerting them to the problem, she went to a news station,...
David Mills reports: A file of confidential documents relating to an ongoing court case have been found scattered across a road by a member of the public. Around 100 muddied A4 sheets were found near the Waldo Road tip in Bromley at the junction of Homesdale Road and Waldo Road at around 9am on...
Keith L. Martin provides a follow-up to a breach reported at the beginning of December. Delaware’s insurance commissioner seems to have moved quickly on this case: BlueCross BlueShield of Delaware is hoping to return an early Christmas gift by state insurance commissioner Matt Denn: a fine of $150,000. Following a Dec. 24 hearing, Denn...
In a remarkable screw-up, a Department of Justice official today accidentally distributed to the media a document containing the names of nearly 20 confidential witnesses interviewed during a federal probe targeting the operators of a fraudulent investment scheme. In announcing felony charges against two men for their roles in an alleged $15 million Ponziesque...
Confidential data from Derriford Hospital has been lost or stolen 17 times during the past two years, health chiefs have admitted. The theft of seven hospital laptops, patient blood results being sent to the wrong address and members of the public accessing sensitive files are among data problems recorded since January 2007. The hospital...
One I missed over the holidays. I think this is the first breach I’ve ever seen out of Malawi…. An official at Zain, Malawi’s second mobile operator has been exposed for invading the privacy of the network’s clients by secretly printing and making available data to Information Minister, Patricia Kaliati. The official, Francis Bisika...
Mary Kincy Benefield reports: Aaron Janus of Russellville completed a Western Union transaction in 2007. The Boston Mountain Copper Company — which receives its mail at a post office box — contracted with Entergy for its electricity in August 2004. And the fee to send an international money order from the Four Seasons Market...
Medical notes of three Dudley patients have been sent in error to a stranger in the town prompting concerns over a government agency’s data security. Rod Phillips, 59, was told he was ineligible for a disability pension and took the matter to tribunal. He said he was alarmed to find three people’s medical notes...