Radiologist Revises Process for Workers Compensation Disclosures

Covered Entity: Health Care Provider

Issue: Impermissible Uses and Disclosures

A radiology practice that interpreted a hospital patient’s imaging tests submitted a worker’s compensation claim to the patient’s employer. The claim included the patient’s test results. However, the patient was not covered by worker’s compensation and had not identified worker’s compensation as responsible for payment. OCR’s investigation revealed that the radiology practice had relied upon incorrect billing information from the treating hospital in submitting the claim. Among other corrective actions to resolve the specific issues in the case, the practice apologized to the patient and sanctioned the employee responsible for the incident; trained all billing and coding staff on appropriate insurance claims submission; and revised its policies and procedures to require a specific request from worker’s compensation carriers before submitting test results to them.

via All Case Examples.

State Hospital Sanctions Employees for Disclosing Patient’s PHI

Covered Entity: Health Care Provider / General Hospital

Issue: Impermissible Disclosure

A nurse and an orderly at a state hospital discussed the HIV/AIDS status of a patient and the patient’s spouse within earshot of other patients without making reasonable efforts to prevent the disclosure. Upon learning of the incident, the hospital placed both employees on leave; the orderly resigned his employment shortly thereafter. Among other actions taken to satisfactorily resolve this matter, the hospital took further disciplinary action with the nurse, which included: documenting the employee record with a memo of the incident; one year probation; referral for peer review; and further training on HIPAA Privacy. In addition to corrective action taken under the Privacy Rule, the state attorney general’s office entered into a monetary settlement agreement with the patient.

via All Case Examples.

Physician Revises Faxing Procedures to Safeguard PHI

Covered Entity: Health Care Provider

Issue: Safeguards

A doctor’s office disclosed a patient’s HIV status when the office mistakenly faxed medical records to the patient’s place of employment instead of to the patient’s new health care provider. The employee responsible for the disclosure received a written disciplinary warning, and both the employee and the physician apologized to the patient. To resolve this matter, OCR also required the practice to revise the office’s fax cover page to underscore a confidential communication for the intended recipient. The office informed all its employees of the incident and counseled staff on proper faxing procedures.

via All Case Examples.

In the name of democracy, and political campaigns, the Obama campaign took things to a scary new level.

Just as Girls Around Me used public Facebook & FourSquare data to list single girls around you, this app uses the freely available census and political data to display blue flags, and reveal names & ages of people who are registered democrats.

Scary that a presidential campaign would stoop this low…

From ProPublica:

Curious how many Democrats live on your block? Just download the Obama campaign’s new mobile app.

The app, released last week, includes a Google map for canvassers that recognizes your current location and marks nearby Democratic households with small blue flags.

For each targeted address, the app displays the first name, age and gender of the voter or voters who live there: “Lori C., 58 F, Democrat.”

All this is public information, which campaigns have long given to volunteers. But you no longer have to schedule a visit to a field office and wait for a staffer to hand you a clipboard and a printed-out list of addresses.

With the Obama app, getting a glimpse of your neighbor’s political affiliation can take seconds.

via Is Your Neighbor a Democrat? Obama Has an App for That – ProPublica.

At some point, we LOST the cold war and the AXIS powers won.

Soviet-style media clampdown?  Taken care of by the media cartels.

East German-style spying?  Facebook, Google, ATT, Verizon, Onstar, etc make that possible.

In case after case, the DOJ uses State Secrets to squash lawsuits and FOIA requests regarding the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs.

Here’s what one of the NSA whistleblowers, William Binney, said at HOPE 9 recently:

“Domestically, they’re pulling together all the data about virtually every U.S. citizen in the country and assembling that information, building communities that you have relationships with, and knowledge about you; what your activities are; what you’re doing. So the government is accumulating that kind of information about every individual person and it’s a very dangerous process.” He estimated that one telecom alone was sending the government an “average of 320 million logs every day since 2001.”

via Privacy and Security Fanatic: HOPE 9: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen.

Remember all those movies where the hero ducked into a bar to avoid the bad guys?

Or all those bars you ducked into with your date, because the vibe felt right?

Kiss those days good bye.

Bars equipped with SceneTap record all patrons in real time, perform gender & demographic analysis, and publish that data on the web & mobile apps.

So much for the privacy and anonymity of your local bar…

From VentureBeat.com:

Imagine this. You and your girlfriend walk into a neighborhood bar, order a cocktail, and, unbeknownst to you both, a camera above is scanning your faces to determine your age and gender. Your deets are combined with data on other bar patrons and then spit out to looky-loo mobile application users trolling for a good-time venue with the right genetic make-up.This isn’t make believe, folks. Rather, it’s a very real scenario that you may have already experienced thanks to a Chicago-based startup called SceneTap, which went live in San Francisco at 25 bars on Friday.SceneTap is a maker of cameras that pick up on facial characteristics to determine a person’s approximate age and gender. The company works with venues to install these cameras and track customers. It also makes web and mobile applications that allow random observers to find out, in real-time, the male-to-female ratio, crowd size, and average age of a bar’s patrons. And no one goes unnoticed. “We represent EVERYONE in the venue,” SceneTap proudly proclaims on its website.Launched in Chicago last July, SceneTap is now live in seven markets, including San Francisco and Austin, and has tracked more than 8.5 million people at 400 partner venues. Bamboo Hut, Bar None, milk bar, The Abassador, Fluid Ultra Lounge and 20 other San Francisco locations now have the i-spy cameras in place.

via Overexposed? Thanks to SceneTap, San Francisco bars are now profiling you | VentureBeat.

The RIAA and MPAA own politicians…that’s no secret.

And to protect their dying business models, the music labels and Hollywood have launched a war against privacy, freedom and security.

ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, etc are all laws written by, and paid for, by the recording & moving industry.

Rob Reid explains how the RIAA determines that a $ 0.99 track on iTunes or a $ 16.95 CD is actually worth $ 150,000 per song.

Behold, the $ 8,000,000 iPod.

via Rob Reid: The $8 billion iPod | Video on TED.com.

In the US, UK and several other countries, employers are requiring that employees hand over their Facebook / Linkedin / etc accounts during the hiring process.

Some are requiring applicants to login to their social media accounts, with the interviewer looking over their shoulders, so that the employers can claim that they did not demand usernames & passwords…just a peek at the data.

From The Register:

The Facebook job test: Now interviewers want your logins

Need work? Better hand over that password

By Dan Olds, Gabriel Consulting • Get more from this author

Posted in HPC Blog, 21st March 2012 13:42 GMT

HPC blog When I wrote this blog about how a recent research study correlated social network behavior with employee success, I speculated that we’d soon see employers trying to circumvent Facebook’s privacy policies in order to get a good look at your Facebook pages.

Well, it turns out that some employers aren’t happy with just seeing the public part of applicant profiles; they’re actually asking prospective employees to turn over their Facebook login and password. Wait, did I get that right? (Looks again.) Yeah, I did. They’re outright asking applicants to give them their Facebook login details as part of the interview screening process.

Other companies are requesting that prospective (and presumably current) employees “friend” HR reps or background-checkers on Facebook. Others are requiring applicants to log in to their Facebook accounts from a company-owned computer – I guess they take screen scrapes of the page for later study, or maybe capture the login keystrokes.

If a company requires you to give them an intimate view of your social networking pages during the interview process, might there be something in the employment agreements that gives them the “right” to take a second, third, or fourth look – whenever they want to – after you’re hired?

via The Facebook job test: Now interviewers want your logins • The Register.

CNN — A Minnesota middle school student, with the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, is suing her school district over a search of her Facebook and e-mail accounts by school employees.The 12-year-old sixth grade student, identified in court documents only as R.S., was on two occasions punished for statements she made on her Facebook account, and was also pressured to divulge her password to school officials, the complaint states.”R.S. was intimidated, frightened, humiliated and sobbing while she was detained in the small school room” as she watched a counselor, a deputy, and another school employee pore over her private communications.The lawsuit claims that her First Amendment rights were violated by employees at Minnewaska Area Middle School, in west-central Minnesota, as well as her Fourth Amendment rights regarding unreasonable search and seizure.

via Minnesota girl alleges school privacy invasion – CNN.com.

The FTC has notified Apple & Google that they actually need to read, abide by and enforce their own privacy policies.  Specifically, these two operators can’t turn a blind-eye to what data the cell-phone application developers collect, and what they do with that data.

From The Register:

FTC tears into Apple, Google over kids’ privacy – or lack of

‘Impossible’ to know data collected by apps, watchdog fumes

By Brid-Aine Parnell

US regulators have told smartphone software makers to do more to protect the privacy of kids using their apps – or face the watchdogs’ wrath.

In a report that acknowledged the “tremendous” growth of mobile software, the Federal Trade Commission said app developers are not making “simple and short” declarations of their privacy policies. As a result, young users – picked out for their vulnerability – could be giving up their mobile phone numbers, contacts, location and other data without knowing about it.

It also warned that app stores run by Apple and Google needed to do more.

“Although the app store developer agreements require developers to disclose the information their apps collect, the app stores do not appear to enforce these requirements. This lack of enforcement provides little incentive to app developers to provide such disclosures and leaves parents without the information they need,” notes the report.

“As gatekeepers of the app marketplace, the app stores should do more.”

via FTC tears into Apple, Google over kids’ privacy – or lack of • The Register.