WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday accused a small Atlanta-based medical lab that specializes in cancer detection of not doing enough to protect its patients’ online records, resulting in the leak of Social Security numbers and birth dates of more than 9,000 consumers.
The complaint against LabMD describes what many consumers fear: being forced to hand over personal information to a doctor’s office or hospital, not knowing how that data is handled or who has access to it, only to become vulnerable to identity theft. The allegations also raise questions about the federal government’s push for the health care industry to swap paper for electronic records to save money when doing so relies on cybersecurity investments by private companies.
