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Pager systems used in healthcare could be exposing patient data across Canada (PHC)

B.C.'s privacy commissioner is investigating the data breach at Vancouver Coastal Health and has asked health authorities across the province to look into the security of their paging technologies. (Photo credit: CTV News)

Paging systems used across B.C. could be exposing sensitive health data of patients, and the privacy researcher who first discovered the data breach believes it’s likely happening across the country.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to find this everywhere in Canada,” said privacy researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis, in an interview with CTVNews.ca in Vancouver. Lewis first discovered and reported the breach to Vancouver Coastal Health in November 2018. Now, internal emails released this month through a Freedom of Information request show that the vulnerability is not limited to Vancouver.

Providence Health Care operates hospitals and clinics in partnership with the Vancouver Coastal Health and the Provincial Health Services Authority.

Click here to read the full story in CTV News.

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