Data Breaches

Now comes word that Michaels, the country’s largest arts and crafts store, apparently has experienced a credit card breach of its customers across its more than 1,200 stores. Michaels issued a statement that it “recently learned of possible fraudulent activity on some U.S. payment cards that had been used at Michaels, suggesting that the company may have experienced a data security attack.” When will this ever come to an end? Retailers are aware that hackers…

In the wake of NSA, Target data breaches, medical records compromised and other privacy invasions comes word that some health care companies are probing available information on patients in order to target them for telemarketing and direct mail pitches. The Wall Street Journal reported (“Data Mining to Recruit Sick People,” Dec. 17, 2013) that companies specializing in patient recruitment for clinical trials are now turning to pharmaceutical records, data brokers and social networks to identify…

Many aspects of the litigation against Advocate are underway. Although many of Advocate’s patients have received letters, some patients have been allegedly victimized without having been aware of the data breach. Some patients state that they have not received letters, but their data was allegedly stolen. To address that issue, we have filed a motion in which we seek to have Advocate publish in the newspapers information concerning the data breach. The intention is to…

In the wake of the massive data breach of four million patients at Advocate Medical comes word of other patient files being compromised at Chicago-area medical facilities. A front-page story of the Chicago Tribune (“Patient files left exposed,” Sept. 10, 2013) explain how records were found scattered at the now closed Edgewater hospital, which has been the site of many break-ins. Chicago Tribune reporters Ameet Sachdev and Nancy Loo reported that despite Edgewater Medical Center’s…

Clifford Law Offices has received hundreds of calls from patients who said they received letters from Advocate Medical regarding the compromise of their privacy and medical information in July. Advocate Medical reported that four computers were allegedly stolen from their Park Ridge offices. The computers contained important information regarding four million patients’ dates of birth, Social Security numbers and medical diagnoses. Some people who called have experienced unauthorized credit cards being opened in their names,…