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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.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Zz9zZ on Thursday September 03 2015, @04:42PM
It is probably easier to educate regular people vs. doctors since the latter often develop an overblown ego which makes them feel that their opinion on everything is paramount, and they deal with stupid questions on a daily basis. I'm sure many of them nod since they probably have heard such information before and have decided that worrying about breaches of email is silly. Or, they believe that the only breaches of privacy are by their own government and "who cares if they see it". Even with developer friends of mine I've heard things like "if they want my youtube history who cares?" It shows such a fatalistic viewpoint on privacy. Even if you can't do anything about it (realistically) at least you can care about the issue.
Oh, and educating normals is definitely easier, I've seen some of the more shocking stories have quite an impact; such as the facebook app spying on users with the phone's mic.
Lastly, there is a lot that could be done. Encryption (which is finally taking off more widely) is the practical line of defense, but we could also pass legislation to define our digital rights and provide legal repercussions for abuses.
Final word: people are busy with their jobs and rarely have the knowledge to fully understand your points, let alone do anything about it. If you want to make a difference then find out which organization would come down on the doctors and then you can give out dire warnings. People react a little more to dire warnings with possibilities of punishment, shakes them out of their daily autopilot. You don't need to convince the normals, you need to convince a few smart people in the right places.
~Tilting at windmills~