Alberta's privacy commissioner is perplexed by news that two laptops containing personal patient information were stolen from a lab at the University of Alberta Hospital.
What's surprising is the information wasn't encrypted, said commissioner Frank Work on Wednesday.
The laptops were taken after a break-in at the Provincial Lab Information Technology room. The laptops contained names, birth dates, personal health numbers and lab reports for communicable and reportable diseases on more than 300,000 people.
While Alberta Health Services did have layers of protection on those laptops, the final layer simply wasn't there, Work said.
"The standard in Alberta… is encryption…. This is highly sensitive information and an issue of public trust," the commissioner said. "How can the public have faith in public bodies if they can't provide security for personal information?"
Automated summary from: CBC News
