According to a survey conducted by the American Health Information Management Association, compliance with the security rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is on the rise. Of 1,117 hospitals and health systems responding to this year's survey, 75 percent said they were at least 85 percent compliant with HIPAA's information security rules, up from 60 percent last year. But compliance with HIPAA's privacy rules declined.

Man charged with hacking database

A 25-year-old network administrator in San Diego has been charged with hacking into a computer system at the University of Southern California and accessing confidential information submitted by more than 275,000 students applying to the school. Eric McCarty was named in a criminal complaint that charged him with knowingly transmitting a code or command to intentionally cause damage to USC's online application system.

Spam case settled

The Federal Trade Commission has settled with two Washington state residents who sent millions of unsolicited commercial e-mail messages in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act. Matthew Olson and Jennifer LeRoy sent spam with false "From" data and misleading subject lines; they also failed to provide a way for recipients to opt out of receiving future e-mails. Olson and LeRoy have agreed not to violate the law again. A suspended US$45,000 judgment will be reinstated if evidence emerges indicating that they have misrepresented their financial condition.