International Law

Missing Alberta health care provider hard drive had thousands of patient images

An unencrypted hard-drive has gone missing at Covenant Health in Alberta, leading to an investigation by the province's Information and Privacy Commissioner. The drive, it appears, contained exclusively images, but many of them would be considered to be highly sensitive including video of surgeries. The names and hospital numbers of the 3,600 relevant patients are also apparent from the directory and file naming systems. The drive apparently went missing when an employee was moving offices. Because it was not a "portable" drive, the data was not encrypted.

See: Missing hard drive had thousands of patient images - Calgary - CBC News.

Full post as published by The Canadian Privacy Law Blog on March 15, 2011 (boomark / email).