by Daniel J. Solove
At first blush, it seems impossible for a person to sue for a HIPAA violation. HIPAA lacks a private cause of action. So do many other privacy and data security laws, such as FERPA, the FTC Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, among others. That means that these laws don’t provide people with a way to sue when their rights under these laws are violated. Instead, these laws are enforced by agencies.
by Daniel J. Solove
In a recent AP story, actress Jennifer Lawrence had some rather extensive and passionate quotes about her loss of privacy. Not too long ago, Lawrence’s nude photos were stolen and leaked on the Internet by a hacker who hacked into her iCloud account. In her comments for the AP story, she lamented how much paparazzi were harassing her: “I knew the paparazzi were going to be a reality in my life. . . . But I didn’t know that I would feel anxiety every time I open my front door, or that being chased by 10 men you don’t know, or being surrounded, feels invasive and makes me feel scared and gets my adrenaline going every day.”
It is often said that people don’t care much about privacy these days given how much information they expose about themselves. But survey after survey emphatically concludes that people really do care about privacy.
by Daniel J. Solove
This post was co-authored with Professor Woodrow Hartzog.
This past Tuesday the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against AT&T for allegedly throttling the Internet of its customers even though they paid for unlimited data plans. This complaint was surprising for many, who thought the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was the agency that handled such telecommunications issues. Is the FTC supposed to be involved here?
by Daniel J. Solove
Are privacy and security laws being enforced effectively? This post is post #5 of a series called Enforcing Privacy and Security Laws.
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), various organizations can be randomly selected to be audited – even if no complaint has been issued against them and even if there has been no privacy incident or breach.
What the audits thus far have revealed is quite alarming. I’ll discuss more on that later.
by Daniel J. Solove
The recent cases of Ebola in the United States demonstrate challenges to health privacy in today’s information age — both in preventing employees from snooping into patient information as well as preventing the disclosure of patient identities.
by Daniel J. Solove
Are privacy and security laws being enforced effectively? This post is post #4 of a series called Enforcing Privacy and Security Laws.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations govern health information maintained by various entities covered by HIPAA (“covered entities”) and other organizations that receive health information from covered entities when performing functions for them. HIPAA is enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Additionally, state attorneys general (AGs) may enforce HIPAA – only a few federal privacy laws can also be enforced by state AGs.
by Daniel J. Solove
Are privacy and security laws being enforced effectively? This post is post #3 of a series called Enforcing Privacy and Security Laws.
by Daniel J. Solove
Are privacy and security laws being enforced effectively? This post is post #2 in a series called Enforcing Privacy and Security Laws. See the end of this post for links to other posts in this series.
What kind of sanctions do privacy and security laws use for enforcement? In this post, I will discuss the various tools that are frequently used in the enforcement of privacy/security laws.
by Daniel J. Solove
PART 1
Are privacy and security laws being enforced effectively? This post is part of a series called Enforcing Privacy and Security Laws.
How are privacy and security laws enforced? How should they be enforced? What enforcement works well? What doesn’t? What are the various agencies that are enforcing privacy laws doing? How do the agencies compare in their enforcement efforts?
I plan to explore these questions in a series of posts. Collectively, I’ll call this series “Enforcing Privacy and Security Laws.”