She had jabbed pencils into her eyes to try to kill herself . When the woman was brought to a Los Angeles County emergency room in 2012 alive and in pain , a hospital employee snapped a photograph , breaking a federal patient privacy law . Two years later , when that photograph appeared on a website that features gory images , the patients medical information had been shared publicly , violating a state regulation . The womans story is extreme , but her experience is an example of how her privacy was violated and her medical data breached . Both crimes , which are on the rise , can lead to identity theft or to misuse of information by health insurance companies , said Pam Dixon , executive director of the San Diego - based World Privacy Forum . The employee disclosed sensitive information about the patient inappropriately and then when the photograph was posted online and went viral , that constituted a data breach , Dixon said . That data breach is against the law . California state law requires hospitals to report breaches of patient medical data . The number of incidents investigated by the California Department of Public Health rose to 4,213 last year , or an 81 percent increase from 2009 when there were 2,333 cases . ;