Data breach: health data

Date: 17.09.2019

Type of data breach: health data stored without password protection

Highly sensitive, medical data of patients worldwide stored on servers, sometimes without password protection. The approximately 16 million healthcare records originate from 50 countries worldwide. In Germany, 13,000 patients are affected by the data leak, half of the data sets found even include X-ray images.

Categories of data concerned: Date of birth, first name and surname, date of examination, information about the treating doctor, information about the treatment

Classification in practice:

Highly sensitive data. Data protection experts speak of a "devastating first impression" and a "tangible scandal". The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Information Security, Ulrich Kelber, commented on this to the Tagesschau news programme:

"You don't want an employer, an insurance company or a bank to know this data and not give you a contract or a loan." This data would make up our digital identity, "it doesn't belong in the hands of third parties"

Country: 50 countries worldwide, including Germany, Brazil, Turkey, India

Source: tagesschau.de

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