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copied!<p>You have two issues here, one technical, one contractual (and hence legal). I would not be asking for legal advice on Stack Overflow.</p> <p>The technical answer is obvious - these guys that did your system are clowns, since they left a gaping security hole in it.</p> <p>Legally, it's going to depend on which country you're in (I notice you're from Brisbane so hello from the other side of the country). Many will have medical and/or privacy legislation which may have been violated so that's one thing to check for. The HIPAA laws that others have suggested looking into are US only; we may have an equivalent in Australia but I'm pretty certain privacy laws here in Oz could be bought into play.</p> <p>Similarly, you need to look over the contract (whether you drafted it or not, I'm assuming you (or your predecessor) signed it otherwise there's no obligation on your part to pay them at all) to see if privacy was a requirement. Even if not, a competent lawyer could argue that it was an implicit requirement.</p> <p>You may well have to suck it up and pay the extra money - I've worked for some big companies and they tend to lay off all responsibility for anything not listed in the deliverables to the client (this is usually written into the contract). If your vendor is a competent one (in terms of business rather than client satisfaction of course), they will have done exactly this.</p> <p>But <strong>first</strong>, contact a lawyer for advice. They're scum-sucking bottom feeders :-), but they are the people who will know what to do and they are best able to examine the contracts and advise you of the best options open to you. I used one about 10 years ago to get out of a car contract that I could no longer afford and, even though it cost several thousand dollars, that was much better than the alternative.</p> <p>Unless they're frequenting SO, the advice you're going to get here is either skewed to the technical side (best case) or downright dangerous in a legal sense (especially since it'll be mostly based on US law). Not wishing to advertise for lawyer types, I do know you can find one <a href="http://www.findlaw.com.au/wld/advancedsearch.asp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p> <p>Best of luck.</p>

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