According to a story published in the May 2009 issue of Corporate Security magazine, courts and state legislatures across the country have been busy addressing issues directly affecting corporate security departments.
The story mentions CVS Caremark’s $2.25 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Health and Human Services over improper disposal of customers’ personal information.
The settlement was reached in response to allegations that employees at store locations across the nation were tossing into open dumpsters sensitive personal health and financial information. The dumping allegedly included pill bottles containing patient names, addresses, prescribing physician's names, medication, and employment applications.
"Data disposal remains the Achilles' heel of data security," Venable attorney Emilio Cividanes says in the story. “[companies] tend to forget that the ‘lifecycle' of personal data does not end with the decision to dispose of the data.”