BMC to send pathology lab show-cause notice over data leak

Mumbai: After data from a privately-run pathology lab, Health Care Solutions, Parel, leaked around six months ago and has been in circulation on social media, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now decided to issue a show-cause notice to the lab for being ‘irresponsible’.

The leaked data contained the test results of patients, along with vital details like name, age, address and contact numbers. Many reports even had results of HIV, pregnancy and tuberculosis tests, and went viral on social sites after the leak.

According to Dr Padmaja Keskar, the executive health officer, “We have taken cognisance of the matter and will issue notice on this. The data leak is of great concern as many privately-run pathology laboratories use servers for data recording, which can be misused.”

The issue came to light after web security expert Troy Hunt tweeted, “Reporting tens of thousands of exposed medical records indexed by Google and containing test results for things like HIV is not fun.”

However, the administrator of Health Care Solutions, Rodrigues Kustas, said, “We have immediately shut our previous website. The data leak was six months ago and now we already have a new server. We have registered a complaint with the cyber cell. This was done by the person who developed the software for us but now we have hired a new person for the assignment.”