Experience of European legislator shows philosophical differences on privacy, and lack of trust in U.S. government

A story published this week in the New York Times highlights some of the key privacy concerns many Europeans have with U.S. data collection practices, particularly those followed under the justification of preventing terrorism. The article…

Grand jury indicts man allegedly responsible for Las Vegas University Medical Center breach

In a follow-up to a HIPAA breach as Las Vegas’ University Medical Center reported last November, the FBI investigation into the matter has resulted in an indictment of the UMC employee allegedly responsible for selling data…

FTC planning to create Internet privacy framework

In the wake of privacy concerns expressed by four U.S. senators about Facebook’s decision to change the way it shares user data with third parties, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it plans to create a…

New HITECH-driven privacy rules forthcoming from HHS

The Department of Health and Human Services announced its plans to propose a new set of rules strengthening privacy and security of personal health information protected. The rules will implement various provisions of the Health Information…

Patient-centric control over data is key to trust in EHRs, but managing consent is not that simple

Another interesting briefing coming out of the ONC Health IT Policy Committee meeting this week was a presentation from Privacy and Security Workgroup chair Deven McGraw, which highlighted the workgroup’s current focus on privacy protections in…

Accountability and enforcement, not just policy, needed to produce trust framework for health information exchange

At yesterday’s monthly meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee, a briefing provided by the leads of the Committee’s NHIN Workgroup described the need for a health information exchange (HIE) trust framework and spelled out five…

Oral arguments in Quon Supreme Court case suggest narrow ruling is likely

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in City of Ontario v. Quon yesterday, and initial reactions in legal circles on the way the plaintiff’s counsel argued the case and the questions raised by the justices seem…