Yesterday, January 28th, Senator Dorgan introduced S. Res. 25, expressing support for January 28th as National Data Privacy Day. The resolution passed the Senate.
I don’t see where President Obama made any proclamation about the day, although he was somewhat understandably preoccupied with things like our economy totally tanking.
Given all the concerns that have been raised about healthcare IT and privacy in his stimulus package, though, it would be nice to see him pay a bit more overt attention to privacy and data protection issues. Dealing with their web site privacy is fine, but there’s so much more that needs to be done, and his rush to healthcare IT is not encouraging. This is where I’d really like to see him do what he does best — go into reflective mode and really listen to the issues and concerns. He has yet to make any statement that shows he is really aware of how bad things are with privacy and data protection. It would be nice to know where he stands on the issue of a national breach notification law and on setting more stringent standards for security and privacy of health-related information.