Potential health data breach exposing names, medical conditions discovered by privacy researcher

Sarah Jamie Lewis sits behind her laptop adorned in stickers on the roof of the Vancouver Public Library to demonstrate how easy it is to see sensitive health data of hospital patients in Vancouver. VANCOUVER -- Up on the roof of the Vancouver Public Library, privacy researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis connects a small antenna to her laptop to listen in on what appears to be a major ongoing breach of sensitive health data of patients in the Vancouver area.

When Lewis realized what she had come across, she immediately contacted the privacy officer at Vancouver Coastal Health .first spoke to Lewis in late August, eight months had passed since she reported the breach to the health authority, and the patient information was still being sent over the unencrypted frequency.

Since then they’ve confirmed to Lewis via email that patient information is communicated by an older pager system that is slowly being replaced. They wrote that there’s no indication one’s information has been compromised or misused adding they are taking this seriously, working on ways to reduce the threat and exploring how they can encrypt their information.

But whether or not provincial public bodies are required to notify individuals or report a breach to a privacy office varies between each province and territory. Reporting and notification depends on whether or not there are specific regulations around health data and the risk of harm from the breach.

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