Hot Topics: Privacy

News (126)

March 22, 2013 5:25 pm

Judge extends order halting campus drug tests

A Missouri college’s comprehensive drug-testing plan for students will stay on hold after a federal judge extended a temporary restraining order.

March 13, 2013 2:18 pm

Harvard Professors Call Ethics of Email Search Into Question

Just days after news broke that Harvard administrators had secretly searched the email accounts of 16 resident deans, professors said the University may have overstepped its bound, calling its own policies into question.

January 30, 2013 3:19 pm

If your genome is public, so are you, researchers find (LA Times)

Using public websites, a team has uncovered the names of supposedly anonymous people who had their DNA analyzed for research purposes. ‘Nobody can promise privacy,’ one expert says.

January 24, 2013 1:13 pm

TSA to drop X-ray airport scanners by June because of privacy concerns; other scanners staying (Yahoo News)

The Transportation Security Administration says the scanners that used a low-dose X-ray will be gone by June because the company that makes them can’t fix the privacy issues. The other airport body scanners, which produce a generic outline instead of a naked image, are staying.

January 23, 2013 4:55 pm

New HIPAA Rules Fortify Patient Privacy (MedPage Today)

Addressing 15 years of digital advances in health record information, the Department of Health and Human Services released stronger rules and protections governing patient privacy last week.  The long-awaited rules enhance the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which governs health records and patient information.

January 18, 2013 11:33 am

Texas school can force teenagers to wear locator chip: judge (Yahoo News)

A public school district in Texas can require students to wear locator chips when they are on school property, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday in a case raising technology-driven privacy concerns among liberal and conservative groups alike.

January 18, 2013 11:30 am

A Little Digging Unmasks DNA Donor Names (The Wall Street Journal)

Genetic information stored anonymously in databases doesn’t always stay that way, a new study revealed, raising concern about how much privacy participants in research projects can expect in the Internet era.

December 10, 2012 6:57 pm

Vote ends on Facebook privacy changes, for good (Computerworld)

The user vote over Facebook’s latest proposed privacy policy change is over and the results showed two things: Facebook overwhelming got the go-ahead to make its policy changes and it showed just how apathetic the site’s users are about online privacy.

November 29, 2012 6:24 pm

Prime Healthcare Services fined $95,000 in privacy case (LA Times)

State officials have fined hospital chain Prime Healthcare Services Inc. $95,000 for violating patient confidentiality by sharing a woman’s medical files with journalists and sending an email about her treatment to 785 hospital employees.

November 27, 2012 4:47 pm

Florida Asks Women to Spill Their Sex Habits (ABC News)

The Florida Department of Health is getting a little too close for comfort for some women in the state.  The department recently mailed a survey to randomly selected women between 18 and 24 requesting intimate details about their sex lives.