WPF Newsletter: August 8, 2014

Recent privacy stories:

CalINDEX: A California state-wide health information exchange called CalINDEX is set to launch in November. Two major insurance companies are funding this effort, which is unusual in the HIE world because insurance claims data will be housed in the database, among eventually additional data, for example, from hospitals.

Big Data: The US Department of Commerce requested comments on privacy implications of Big Data, and many organizations and individuals responded, including WPF.

WPF’s Big Data comments
US Department of Commerce Big Data comment request

Big data breach/hack (Cybervore Breach): A significant and apparently global hack originating from Russia grabbed over 1 billion passwords and affected more than 420,000 web sites large and small worldwide. US firm Hold Security has uncovered what many are describing as the largest data breach that has been discovered to date. The Washington Post, NYT, and many other papers are coming out with articles about the impact. Here’s a link to the original source, meanwhile, if you haven’t updated your passwords to web sites you visit recently, it is important to do so as soon as practicable.

HoldSecurity discussion of the Cybervor Breach

WPF happenings:

Workshops: WPF presented two workshops to the National Network to End Domestic Violence in San Jose, California (late July). The workshops taught NNEDV experts how to work with data broker privacy and health care privacy in the NNEDV context. NNEDV is one of our favorite groups to work with, it is an honor and we always learn so much from them.

San Diego: This week, Executive Director Pam Dixon went to ClearChannel’s San Diego studio and talked to Mark Zegan in studio for an upcoming broadcast. It is so rare to do radio interviews in-studio anymore, it was a treat to meet a long-time San Diego “voice!”

Upcoming: WPF has been invited to speak on behalf of consumers at the FTC Big Data Workshop September 15, 2014.

Update: See our Summer News update for recent WPF news stories.

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Posted August 8, 2014 in News, Press, and Media

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