The financial system is often lauded as being good at protecting Americans' sensitive financial and demographic data, but the evidence is not so clear. Heartland had a massive breach of credit card data in its system of sponsored banks. In addition to the $12.6 million in costs, it will also have to pay to "implement end-to-end encryption when payment data is sent from the merchant to the processor".
Will breaches of healthcare data cost any less? That is highly doubtful. The pain and exposure is far worse and there are NO remedies. The privacy of health data can never be recovered or restored. With identity theft you can eventually recover from the damage and restore your credit.
Plus its harder to protect electronic health data because there is SO MUCH MORE sensitive personal data than exists in financial systems. Payment and credit card data are just the start, everything is included in electronic health systems, from prescriptions to DNA.
And compared to the financial industry, the healthcare industry has millions more employees----of insurers, hospitals, pharmacies, data management and data warehousing corporations, HIT vendors, and even state and federal government agencies----who all have access to sensitive data.
See article "Heartland breach cost $12.6 million, CEO says"
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