So my husband and I are just getting over being appalled at the laptop
being stolen with VA records that include him, when I look at
yesterday's paper and see:

Hospital ID laptop is stolen 
http://www.pojonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060803/NEWS05/608030347/1009/NEWS

It says that anyone who has been seen at Vassar Brothers Hospital
(which does a lot of outpatient testing for people in the area) since
2000 is affected, but when I read the article, we hadn't gotten a
letter. Never fear; when we got home last night, the letters were
waiting for us.

The hospital put the information on the laptop as part of a disaster
drill. Now they've got a real disaster. With the VA problem, the
taxpayers had to foot the bill for the letters going out, etc.; with
this one, the hospital has probably spent over $100,000 on the problem
already, and today's paper reports that their hot line for questions
about the theft was swamped yesterday after the paper printed the phone
number. I expect people at the hospital are scurrying to devise new
security requirements for this sort of information.

Today's story is currently available at:
Vassar patients worried about ID theft overwhelm hot line 
http://www.pojonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060804/NEWS01/608040343/1006

I hope some legislators are working on severely punitive legislation
for any entity that has such thefts. Both the VA and the hospital
"reassured" us that no medical information was involved in the thefts,
only our names, SSNs, DoBs, etc.  I don't find this reassuring--I've
never head of anyone using medical files to prove their identity when
applying for a credit card ("But can't you see this scar? That proves
that I'm John Smith!")

Christine


Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer
Information Services Librarian
Conrad N. Hilton Library:
http://www.ciachef.edu/admissions/about/library.asp
The Culinary Institute of America
1946 Campus Drive
Hyde Park, NY  12538
(845) 451-1322
fax (845) 451-1092
[log in to unmask]

Learn more about The World's Premier Culinary College
at www.ciachef.edu

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org.
For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>