On May 15, 2005, at 12:02 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:

> A  former branch manager at a California medical practice has been
> charged
> with  stealing the confidential records of about 185,000 patients in
> one of the
> largest cases of data theft of its kind, authorities said. Joseph
> Nathaniel
> Harris is accused of...
> San Jose  Mercury News, Sat, 14 May 2005 3:32 AM PDT
> Charges in patient records theft
> _http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/
> 11646897.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_health_
> (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/
> 11646897.htm?source=rss&channel=
>

While we use to see an occasional story like this, now we see it daily.
Electronic records make ease of transfer such a simple task and the
fact that huge volumes of data can be moved so effortlessly and in many
case without any trail, that this type of crime is sure to escalate.
Each story makes people think of opportunities within their own work
place to perform this theft.

Since we are not reading about "Life in Prison" or "20 year to life" as
punishment, the reward is out of proportion to the possible punishment.

This is where the Records Manager as a Gatekeeper makes sense.  Unless
inserting a Flash Drive into a computer sends an alarm signal to
someone, we are vulnerable and someone has to think about how to
protect the information.

So far, the corporations that lose the data are paying a price in image
and clean up costs but the people stealing the information are not
bearing the proper brunt of legal punishment to hopefully limit further
crime. But the only effective way to stop losses is to put responsible
people in the pipeline to limit loss.

As we have seen, IT Managers don't want to stop racing around long
enough to address the problem and they fight any intervention from
records managers, this battle will need to go through the legal
Department to get them to back RM as a role player here.

The risk is across the whole organization:

Data Base:                                              Interested Buyer

Client lists and sales volumes                  Competitor
Medical Records                                 Insurance Companies
HR Records                                              Insurance Companies, Credit Card companies, Banks
Engineering Records                             Global competitors with low labor costs

etc. etc.

By merely bundling different data bases, a disgruntled employee can
reap large rewards by selling the information to a myriad of buyers.

This will not stop until Security of Records is taken seriously.

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM

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