Health Care Data Breaches- Hackers or Human Errors?

Since 2009, health care data breach statistics are:

  • 8%  involve hacking
  • 40.9 million individuals’ records have been exposed
    • Of the individual records, 19%, were blamed on hackers
      • This includes a hack, allegedly by Chinese hackers ,to the health care data at Community Health System in Franklin, TN, resulting in stolen personally identifiable information on 4.5 million individuals.

President Obama’s federal data …

2 Experts: Federal Data Security Standards Loosen State Standards. Less Protection for Individuals.

2 Privacy Experts say Federal Standards Don’t help individuals:

  • Alvaro Bedoya, the executive director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown University Law Center, says consumers benefit from state laws which are stronger than national proposals. 
  • Software & Information Industry Association says individuals will not be safer with federal protections.

adminPosted indata privacy, legislative trend, retail data breach

States are Passing Data Security Bills. See Where State Laws Stand. Business Interests Beware.

Baker Hostetler offers an absolutely fantastic chart of what every state is doing on data security.

Data privacy experts say state laws go further to protect your information if its the subject of a leak, breach or hack. Tort reform types point to data breaches being a new bevy of class action lawsuits.  Baker Hostetler

WA Data Security Legislation

Hot Topic: How to protect and notify individuals in case of a data breach. Here’s Washington State’s proposal to upgrade their notification laws: Finally, unlike other states, Washington state law does not require any centralized reporting to the state when a data breach occurs, resulting in a lack of robust information for law enforcement and consumers.

The proposed legislation strengthens Washington’s data breach notification law by:

• Notification requirements when the d…

White House Wants to Lead in Education Data Protection Legislation

The White House released proposals to protect data. Student data. Energy data.  Tech data. 75 Companies have said “Aye.” Including the big dogs- Apple and Microsoft. 

Education Data Protection:

  • No sales to third parties for a purpose other than strictly educational.
  • No targetted advertising to kids. 

WSJhttp://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/01/12/white-house-moves-to…

Data Security Ripe for Tort Reform. Will it help? No Says Washington Post Legal Commentator

Mandatory data breach notices have triggered lawsuits. Lawsuits have led to class action lawsuits. Think Target and Home Depot, the big retail data breaches. Class Action lawsuits lead to settlements.  

Whether one agrees or not what the impact of tort reform will be, data security is ripe for tort reform. 

 Volokoh Conspiracy | Washi…

Kerfuffle: Financial Institutions v. 6 Retailer Groups- Which Bears the Financial Burden for a Data Breach?

The fighters for financial institutions:   Independent Community Bankers of America  

The fighters for retailers: Retail Industry Leaders Association, National Retail Federation, National Grocers Association,  Merchant Advisory Group, National Association of Convenience Stores, Food Marketing Institute, &  National Restaurant Association 

 Why did the kerfuffle start: Banks assert that they absorb the heaviest burden “f…