White House Releases New Patient Privacy Guidelines For Post-Roe World
The Biden administration is responding to fears that patient data and tech tools could be used against women seeking reproductive care in states where abortion is banned. The Department of Health and Human Services is emphasizing federal limits on the disclosure of medical records. And the White House will ask the FTC to shield period app data.
Bloomberg:
Biden Seeks To Boost Abortion Patient Privacy After Roe Tossed
The Biden administration moved to assure women that sensitive information – including medical records related to abortion and data collected by health and period tracking apps – could be shielded from law enforcement after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. The Department of Health and Human Services issued new guidance Wednesday telling health-care providers they are not required to - and often legally prohibited from – disclosing private health-care information related to abortion and other sexual and reproductive health care. (Sink, 6/30)
The Wall Street Journal:
Abortion Ruling Prompts Privacy Guidelines From Biden Administration
For instance, the guidance document says, a hospital employee who suspected a patient of having an abortion in a state where it is illegal couldn’t report that to law-enforcement personnel unless a state law specifically required such reporting. (Mathews, 6/29)
The Washington Post:
The Planned Parenthood Website Shares Your Data
An investigation by Lockdown Privacy, the maker of an app that blocks online tracking, found that Planned Parenthood’s web scheduler can share information with a variety of third parties, including Google, Facebook, TikTok and Hotjar, a tracking tool that says it helps companies understand how customers behave. These outside companies receive data including IP addresses, approximate Zip codes and service selections, which privacy experts worry could be valuable to state governments looking to prosecute abortions. (Hunter, 6/29)
The Washington Post:
Abortion Is Illegal For Millions. Will Big Tech Help Prosecute It?
Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned, tech workers and privacy advocates had a big question: Will Big Tech help in abortion prosecutions by sharing user data with police? (De Vynck, O'Donovan, Tiku and Dwoskin, 6/29)
The Boston Globe:
A Chilling Post-Roe Reality In An Age Of Digital Tracking
Delete your period app. Get your daughter a burner phone. These are a couple of the chilling recommendations tech security experts have for women in the new post-Roe United States, where anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. And now, in states with early-abortion bans, that includes your digital data. “The privacy issues are going to be a really big thing,” says Carmel Shachar, who directs the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. Going forward, in antiabortion states a pregnant person who Googles the abortion pill or ventures to a reproductive health clinic with her phone in her pocket will be putting herself at risk. (Holmes and Dreyfuss, 6/30)
Also —
The New York Times:
First Amendment Confrontation May Loom In Post-Roe Fight
The Supreme Court declared clearly last week that there is no federal right to abortion. But how the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization affects the right to talk about abortion remains far from settled, teeing up what legal experts said was a looming confrontation over whether the First Amendment allows censoring speech about a medical procedure that will become illegal in much of the country. In states where abortion is outlawed, for instance, how can women be informed of their options elsewhere? (Peters, 6/29)
