Attorney David Holtzman writes: The HHS Office for Civil Rights, the agency with primary responsibility for regulation of the HIPAA standards, is slated to address a controversial proposal developed under the Trump administration that would make extensive changes to the Privacy Rule, a congressional mandate to expand its mission into the confidentiality of substance use disorder treatment records, and the department’s…
Category: Healthcare
Administrative fine imposed on psychotherapy centre Vastaamo for data protection violations
A hack and extortion attempt involving the psychotherapy center in Vastaamo, Finland was — and remains — one of the worst breaches ever covered on PogoWasRight.org and DataBreaches.net because it involved the sensitive mental health information of tens of thousands of patients and a coverup by an executive of the clinic. Now EDPB has posted…
Idea of national patient IDs revives privacy fight
Ben Leonard reports: Advocates of unique IDs to match patients to their health records may be close to lifting a decadeslong congressional ban on using federal funds to develop the system. The effort, long mired in broader debates over patient privacy, gained steam this fall when the Senate for the first time left the ban…
Canada’s public health agency admits it tracked 33 million mobile devices during lockdown
Swikar Oli reports: The Public Health Agency of Canada accessed location data from 33 million mobile devices to monitor people’s movement during lockdown, the agency revealed this week. “Due to the urgency of the pandemic, (PHAC) collected and used mobility data, such as cell-tower location data, throughout the COVID-19 response,” a spokesperson told National Post….