LifeLock Blog

Some attorneys are ambulance chasers—a term coined to describer personal injury lawyers who follow ambulances from car wrecks to the hospital so they can shove their business cards into the hands of accident victims. Apparently at University Medical Center, attorneys—and possibly others—can simply buy victims’ information from the Las Vegas hospital’s employees.

Kathy Silver, the hospital’s CEO, admitted to legislators this week that she’s know for three weeks that the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of at least 21 people who were patients at the UMC October 31 and November 1were sold. Those 21 patients were among 71 to receive services on October 31 and November 1, all of whom may be victims of the privacy breach.

The hospital’s chairman of the board, County Commissioner Lawrence Weekly learned of the data breach at the same time Silver did. When asked why he didn’t take steps after learning of the privacy breach when Silver did, he said he didn’t know selling patients’ information is illegal. (more…)