Belgian prisoners hired to process private Dutch medical records

At least seven, but possibly as many as 14, Dutch hospitals let prisoners in Belgium work on their patient files. Up until the end of 2014 these prisoners' job was to remove staples, paperclips and photos so that the information could be scanned, the program Meldpunt van Omroep Max reported on Tuesday. In the broadcast prisoners spoke about how they got a look at photos of raped children and women's breasts while working on these patient files. If a file looked to be too much trouble, they simply smuggled it out of the room and threw the medical records away, one prisoner said. This work was organized by the company iGuana. The company responded that the prisoners worked "under strict supervision" and that they were not able to look at the files, "quite apart from the fact that there was no opportunity to do so due to the required pace". iGuana was also in the news in January when human error led to the data of thousands of patients from two Dutch hospitals and one Belgian hospitals being leaked.