Texas Does Poor Job of Securing Patient Info

_Sharp'r_ writes "This new security audit from Texas is an example of why the solution to medical privacy isn't to store it all in a big government database. The report describes a myriad of problems with state health and welfare agency's information security. Some of the problems cited include lack of firewalls, wide open wireless access points and all the other "usual suspects" that we've come to expect from a government security solution. The network is especially vulnerable to internal misuse, according to the report. For example, 'poor access controls' allowed a Department of Health customer service employee to create 74 fraudulent birth certificates. The report found that many of the agencies' nearly 50,000 workers have access to "tremendous amounts of decentralized, confidential data." You can also access an html formatted version of the full report."

Comments

The Problem Isn't Governments Having Information

[MBCook]

The problem isn't that the government is collecting information, it's that the government is using something that it often doesn't know anything about: computers. There is nothing wrong with the government having a large medical database for example, if it's properly secured. That is why the governement should, IMHO, have private companies compete for contracts to do the actual IT work. This would insure that we had power over sloppy work. If it's the government that's doing things, we just compain and try to get new people into the position. But with a private company, we can always say "Well if you make another mistake and don't fix that one fast, we can have XYZ Corp doing things by Monday." Obviously, such a large contract would be important to a company.

Please note that this post has nothing to do with privacy in it's self, I'm just talking about how we should have someone else do the "grunt work", in this case security and maintence, than Uncle Sam.

Similar story just hit the UK

[DrSkwid]

NHS patient privacy? What patient privacy!
By John Leyden
Posted: 11/02/2003 at 12:50 GMT

Up to 200,000 requests are made by investigators under false pretences to obtain health information on British patients each year. And most attempts succeed, according to the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR).

But you can trust the government! Really you can..

[ShatteredDream]

Afterall the government never sells your information to corporations (think most DMVs). It never collects whatever data it can just in case it never needs it (Carnivore, USA PATRIOT Act dragnetting). It never undermines your ability to defend yourself against violent and deranged fucks (gun control, school zero tolerance policies). It never limits your free speech rights or your access to information (DeCSS cases, CDA, DMCA and again the PATRIOT Act). Its punishments never go over the top for those that commit non-egregious offenses (40 years for posession of a kilo of cocaine, $250K in fines for copying 10 DVDs). And of course our elected officials make great role models for kids (damn, I'd now be having to find exceptions, not examples).

In short, too many people trust their government. It's easy to believe that "we're the government." But we aren't. Who in their right mind believes 90% of what is on the federal and state law books would be there if we had a republic where representatives were chosen like jurors, not by popular vote? Our corrupt political class loves to say "it's in the public interest." You see, we don't see their "bigger picture" that includes the so-called benefits of having the government possess the full medical records of its citizens. Afterall it takes only one bill or amendment to one that gives insurance corporations full access to this. It's one thing to let them demand you give it to them to get insurance, it's another to force the people at gun point, which is how all laws are ultimately enforced, to give their information to the government who then can sell it to raise some more money needed to hide part of the proof of its fiscal irresponsibility.

So again sheeple, repeat after me. "We're the government. This happens because we want it to. Democracy works and the people are in charge. You can trust your government. Bahh baahhhh baaahhhh"