Prime Minister’s health records breached in database attack
Dan Goodin writes in The Register:
Personal medical records belonging to Scotland’s rich and powerful – including Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Holyrood’s First Minister Alex Salmond – have been illegally accessed in a breach of a national database that holds details of 2.5 million people.
The files contained names, ages, addresses, and occupations of the patients, in addition to medical information such as a list of any current medications and allergies to medicines, according to The Sunday Mail. The records of BBC newswoman Jackie Bird (an earlier version of this story mistakenly referred to her as “newsman”) and former Labour leader Jack McConnell and his culture chief wife Bridget were also accessed.
The files were part of the Emergency Care Summary system database, which was established three years ago amid guarantees by the NHS that it was protected using the “highest standards of security.” NHS staff generally have to ask patients’ permission before reading records except when a patient is unconscious or otherwise unable to give consent.
March 4th, 2009 at 17:05
It’s clear (as it always has been) that the “highest standards of security” mean absolutely nothing when the security breach comes from a person with physical access to the data.