Category: Uncategorized

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued a Notice of Final Determination finding that Cignet Health of Prince George’s County, Md., (Cignet) violated the Privacy Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). HHS has imposed a civil money penalty (CMP) of…

Jennifer Learn-Andes reports: Imagine that police, firefighters and emergency workers are racing toward you in response to a 911 call from your landline phone or cell. You may be slipping out of consciousness or unable to speak altogether. Even if you can communicate, you may be too frantic or shocked to think straight. What would…

Terri Dowty of Action on Rights for Children (ARCH) writes: If you’ve ever had a baby, you will already know about the ‘heel-prick test’. A few days after birth, a small sample of blood is taken from a baby’s heel and transferred to a ‘Guthrie Card’ as a series of blood spots. The blood is…

Nymity interview with Rebecca Herold: Many hospitals are concerned about or are even not permitting parents, grandparents and visitors to take photographs of new born babies or patients in their main public area facilities or even in less public area facilities and perhaps in turn, posting those pictures on Facebook or other more public sites. In addition,…

Torsten Ove reports: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and several other Pennsylvania newspapers filed a petition today to open a sealed state Supreme Court case that could potentially alter part of the state’s abortion law. The case involves a 17-year-old who requested permission from an Allegheny County judge to have an abortion and was denied. Such “bypass…

Draft paper by the Australian Privacy Foundation can be found on their site.  Many of the concerns they raise are the same ones we’ve seen here and elsewhere,  and need to be addressed.