{"id":125963,"date":"2016-09-16T14:10:27","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T18:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=125963"},"modified":"2016-09-16T13:05:57","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T17:05:57","slug":"private-information-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/private-information-planned-parenthood\/","title":{"rendered":"Is private medical information really safe at Planned Parenthood?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In part two of our series on medical information safety at abortion facilities, Live Action News looks into reported data breaches of protected health information at the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood<\/a>, which receives half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds\u00a0annually.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Planned

Planned Parenthood Privacy Breach<\/p><\/div>\n

As documented in our last report<\/a>, Planned Parenthood in Iowa exposed over 2500 patients when they carelessly left records behind after moving\u00a0out of their Dubuque facility. In an online admission<\/a>, Planned Parenthood warned their patients of “a potential breach of patients\u2019 personal health information” in which records were\u00a0“accessed by unauthorized parties.” Only weeks ago, Spokeswoman Rachel Lopez admitted<\/a>\u00a0that hard copies of patient information were inadvertently left at the building, including\u00a0“patients\u2019 full name, date of birth, mailing address, insurance information, social security number, medical record number, diagnosis, treatment, and lab results.” The documents were found by the building’s new owner May 6, but according to media reports<\/a>, Planned Parenthood patients were not told about the privacy breach until July 1st.<\/p>\n

If this were an isolated incident, perhaps it could be overlooked, but other privacy breach incidents at Planned Parenthood tell us that there is a problem.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho notified patients about a data security “error” whereby e-mails were “inadvertently sent to the wrong addresses.”<\/p>\n

In an online post<\/a> Planned Parenthood referred to it as an “isolated occurrence”:<\/p>\n

On June 28, 2016, some emails notifying individuals of an online portal were inadvertently sent to the wrong addresses. This caused individuals to receive another person\u2019s email, which included the intended recipient\u2019s first and last name. There was no other personal or health information in the email, and the recipient would not have been able to use the information to access the portal under another person\u2019s name. Upon discovery on June 28, we took action to assess the situation and shut down the portal. We immediately determined it was an isolated occurrence, and it was resolved promptly. We have no evidence that any of the information involved in this incident has been misused in any way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Planned

Planned Parenthood Data Security Update<\/p><\/div>\n

But there can only be so many “isolated occurrences” before they aren’t<\/em> so isolated.<\/p>\n