Amiri Halberg reports: A report by the privacy commissioner released today says that insurers, by asking full patient notes, have been risking breaking privacy law. Investigations held by Marie Shroff have discovered that insurers have been crossing limits in requesting full medical notes going back a number of years, when insuring people or paying out…
Category: Uncategorized
UK: Amending the law on the DNA database needs proper scrutiny
From a commentary by David Pannick, QC: Last December the European Court of Human Rights decided in S and Marper v The United Kingdom that the retention by the State of DNA profiles is a breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. That is because information about people arrested for, or…
Ohio Supreme Court Protects The Privacy Of Medical Records In Abortion Case
From the ACLU: The Ohio Supreme Court today moved to protect the privacy of minors’ medical records when the minor is not a party in a lawsuit. The case involves a lawsuit against an Ohio Planned Parenthood and attempts by a teenager’s parents to obtain the medical records not only of their own daughter…
Class Action Suit: Stimulus Act and health privacy
Over in the UK, there are are similar issues about allowing people to opt-out of an electronic system. I’m almost surprised that this is the first lawsuit I’ve seen here. The Stimulus Act signed into law by President Obama jeopardizes the privacy rights of the 65 percent of Americans who aren’t on Medicaid or Medicare…
No joy for Rx data miners this week
Cross-posted from PogoWasRight.org: In a second blow to big Pharma and data miners, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to grant an injunction blocking Vermont’s Prescription Data Mining Law from taking effect tomorrow, July 1. The decision, announced the same day that the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to New Hampshire’s…
Blood Samples Raise Questions of Privacy
Rob Stein of The Washington Post reports: Matthew Brzica and his wife hardly noticed when the hospital took a few drops of blood from each of their four newborn children for routine genetic testing. But then they discovered that the state had kept the dried blood samples ever since — and was making them available…