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posted by martyb on Thursday September 03 2015, @12:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the must-not-have-used-gmail dept.

The BBC News reports that:

The 56 Dean Street clinic in London's Soho sent out the names and email addresses of 780 patients when a newsletter was issued to people who attend the clinic. Patients were supposed to be blind-copied into the email but instead details were sent as a group email.

From an interview with one patient:

One man, a 40-year-old public sector worker, has been HIV positive for 13 years and has been using the Dean Street clinic for five. He said: "I felt sick when I realised what had happened. I first saw the email at work but ignored it as I was busy. I then looked at it when I was on the way home from work. I couldn't breathe. I'm concerned who will get this information. If it ends up in the hands of the wrong people, such as hate groups, it could be dynamite."

Further:

Fellow patient James ... said: "I was travelling back from the pride parade in Manchester on Monday when I received this email. I couldn't believe it when I got it and I've been full of worry since. I am not ready to disclose my HIV status to my wider friends or family. I fear now that I have no choice."

Finally, a friend informs me that a breach of privacy at another clinic may be widely reported within the next few days.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @03:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @03:42PM (#231802)

    Every email client should throw a fit and require an explicit manual over-ride whenever sending a message with multiple recipients. A window should pop-up containing a list of every recipient in a big font, it should pause for at least 5 seconds before the user even has the option to click OK. In the grand scheme of things, a 5 second pause is not a significant work-flow interruption, but it could literally be a life-saver.

    Meanwhile, here's a story where the root problem is another broken tool - but instead of software, it's the law.

    Activists Pursue Private Abortion Details Using Public Records Laws [propublica.org]

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @11:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @11:58PM (#232039)

    When you give your email address to someone, thinking that the dumb bitch is only going to use it in the context you gave it to her, then she not only puts you on her bulk mailing list without your permission but uses CC instead of BCC (because, again, she's way more stupid than you ever imagined), you realize just how bad the CC-line-displayed-by-default thing in email clients is.

    Yeah, I'm still pissed at this major breech of etiquette after these many years.

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Friday September 04 2015, @04:24AM

    by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday September 04 2015, @04:24AM (#232124) Journal

    That and make it explicitly easy to see who is getting the email you are writing and explicitly easy to fill in the To, CC, and BCC fields. I last used Outlook a few years ago and it made it difficult to see who was in which field. At home I use Thunderbird and it's even worse to populate the boxes and see who is getting what. It's limited to three lines and each line can have To, CC, or BCC, but to see the whole list? You have to scroll thought those three lines and click on tiny individual hard-to-see buttons.

    Hey... here's another idea that can help with this: Have premade lists default to CC or BCC (changeable by user).