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St Albans patients' data was on stolen laptops
From: Jon Turner <jjturner () gmail com>
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 18:58:57 +0100
http://www.hertsad.co.uk/content/herts/news/story.aspx?brand=HADOnline&category=News&tBrand=HertsCambsOnline&tCategory=newslatestHAD&itemid=WEED06%20May%202009%2013%3A46%3A37%3A837 PERSONAL details of around 2,000 patients are in the hands of thieves after three laptops containing confidential information were stolen in separate incidents. West Herts Hospitals Trust (WHHT) chief executive, Jan Filochowski, has explained the situation and apologised to all patients of the orthotic service whose names were contained on the stolen laptops. He admitted although the first laptop was stolen in March 2006, the second a year later and the most recent in February 2008, WHHT only learned they contained patient identifiable data from orthotic service providers Trulife last month. Among the details contained on the computers were patients' hospital reference numbers and details of their prescriptions. One of those who received a letter was Pauline Day, of High Oaks, St Albans, whose 13-year-old son had been a patient at the orthotic clinic at City Hospital. She said she had no idea that personal details had been stolen and although they referred to patients of a foot clinic, she found it rather disconcerting. St Albans prospective parliamentary candidate, Sandy Walkington, said it was just the latest example of public bodies losing potentially sensitive personal data. "It is particularly worrying after all the previous alarms that it should have taken more than three years for the trust's service provider to come clean on the loss of the first laptop and then reveal two more had also been stolen. "There is something deeply amiss with their reporting systems and processes and we need reassurance that all the lessons have been learned." A WHHT spokesperson said they regarded it as a serious breach of information security and had written to explain the situation to all the families concerned and to apologise. They had also been given contact numbers to call if they had concerns. She added that they had reviewed their processes for telephone contacts to ensure the data could not be used alone to retrieve information about patients by phone. _______________________________________________ Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss () datalossdb org) CREDANT Technologies, a leader in data security, offers advanced data encryption solutions. Protect sensitive data on desktops, laptops, smartphones and USB sticks transparently across your enterprise to ensure regulatory compliance. http://www.credant.com/stopdataloss
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- St Albans patients' data was on stolen laptops Jon Turner (May 07)