Yesterday in Congress, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) introduced H.R. 2221, co-sponsored by Reps. Stearns (R-FL), Barton (R-TX), Schakowsky (D-IL), and Radanovich (R-CA). The text of the bill is not yet available online, but it was introduced as “A bill to protect consumers by requiring reasonable security policies and procedures to protect computerized data containing personal…
Category: Federal
HHS offers health IT privacy guidelines
Brian Robinson reports in Government Health IT: The Health and Human Services Department has begun overhauling the privacy and security rules that govern personal health information, which is considered vital to attempts by Congress and the Obama administration to broaden the adoption of electronic health records. HHS published guidance on April 17 that outlines the…
FTC Publishes Proposed Breach Notification Rule for Electronic Health Information
From the FTC: The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it has approved a Federal Register notice seeking public comment on a proposed rule that would require entities to notify consumers when the security of their electronic health information is breached. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the Recovery Act) includes provisions to…
Congress heard us! (commentary)
I’m first working my way through the provisions in the stimulus bill that relate to breaches and notifications. One of the recommendations that I and other privacy advocates had made was central notification and disclosure on a publicly available web site. They heard us. Here’s part of the new law: (3) NOTICE TO SECRETARY- Notice…
And here I thought the Senate forgot…
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…
Comments on Senator Feinstein’s bill, S. 139
Earlier this week, Senator Feinstein grabbed the privacy headlines when she reintroduced the same breach notification bill that she has introduced in every session of Congress for the past few years. Like me, the bill has not improved with age. S.139 is intended to provide a national “floor” on data breach notifications for breaches involving…