Private medical records offered for sale

Medical records of patients treated at a private British hospital, The London Clinic, have been illegally sold to undercover investigators.

The revelations were made in ITV’s Tonight Programme report, Health Records For Sale, broadcast last night.

The programme reported that hundreds of files containing details of patients’ conditions, home addresses and dates of birth were offered to undercover reporters for just £4 each by sales executives from India, contacted online.

New Study Reveals Push to Electronic Medical
Records Puts Patient Privacy at Risk

According to the October 2009 Ponemon report, Electronic Health Information at Risk: A Study of IT Practitioners, 80 percent of healthcare organizations surveyed had experienced at least one incident of lost or stolen electronic health information in the past year - four percent had more than five patient data breaches. More than two-thirds of these healthcare organizations had already digitized at least a quarter of their patient records and a third had digitized more than half.

MPs call for stricter regulation of behavioural advertising

MPs and Lords have called for a change in the law to make it illegal to engage in behavioural advertising without an internet user's explicit consent. The Parliamentary group has also backed the creation of a privacy law.

The call comes just days after consumer regulator the Office of Fair Trading said that it would be carrying out an investigation into whether behavioural advertising is unfair to consumers.

The All Party Parliamentary Communications Group (ApComms) said the internet advertising industry's self-regulation on behavioural advertising was inadequate, and that a law change was necessary.

"We do not believe that it is at all appropriate to consider the deployment of any type of behavioural advertising system without explicit, informed, 'opt-in' by everyone whose data is to be processed, and whose behaviour is to be monitored and whose interests are to be deduced," said ApComms in a report on its findings.

"We do not believe that 'opt-out', however commercially convenient, is the way that these systems should be run. To that extent, the Good Practice Principles promoted by the Internet Advertising Bureau are insufficient to protect people," it said.

Iconix Brand Group Settles Charges Its Apparel Web
Sites Violated Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Iconix Brand Group, Inc. will pay a $250,000 civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC’s COPPA Rule by knowingly collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children online without first obtaining their parents’ permission.

Iconix owns, licenses, and markets – both offline and online – several popular apparel brands that appeal to children and teens, including Mudd, Candie’s, Bongo, and OP. Iconix required consumers on many of its brand-specific Web sites to provide personal information, such as full name, e-mail address, zip code, and in some cases mailing address, gender, and phone number – as well as date of birth – in order to receive brand updates, enter sweepstakes contests, and participate in interactive brand-awareness campaigns and other Web site features. Since 2006, Iconix knowingly collected and stored personal information from approximately 1,000 children without first notifying their parents or obtaining parental consent, according to the FTC’s complaint. On one Web site, MyMuddWorld.com, Iconix also enabled girls to publicly share personal stories and photos online, according to the complaint.

Experts warn of data misuse after student site hacking

“The incident shows that one should consider where one divulges data, particularly on the internet,” he told daily Berliner Zeitung. “Data available online and used by a number of people is difficult to protect from misuse,” he added, emphasising that this was not the first case of customer data misuse due to such a situation.

Information from up to one million underage users of the popular social networking site was stolen by at least two hackers and made available for download on an internet forum, the company announced over the weekend.

The German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM) also warned parents and students to protect their personal information online.

“The highest level of security must be ensured for data protection of children and youth on online networks. It should enjoy the highest priority,” BITKOM head Bernhard Rohleder told the paper, adding that parents should pay attention to what their children do on the internet.