PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

high-tech technology background with eyes on computer display

Lawsuits for HIPAA Violations and Beyond: A Journey Down the Rabbit Hole

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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.

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People Care About Privacy Despite Their Behavior

people care about privacy

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.

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Should the FTC Be Regulating Privacy and Data Security?

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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?

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The Most Alarming Fact of the HIPAA Audits

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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.

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Ebola and Privacy: Snooping, Confidentiality, and HIPAA

Ebola Virus Confidential

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.

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The Brave New World of HIPAA Enforcement

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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.

hhs logoThe 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.

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Who Are the Privacy and Security Cops on the Beat?

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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.

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The Privacy Pillory and the Security Rack: The Enforcement Toolkit

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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.

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Why Enforce Privacy and Security Laws?

law blog 1by Daniel J. Solove

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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.”

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Why Being Well-Regulated Is Good for Business

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by Daniel J. Solove

After Apple announced that it wouldn’t provide law enforcement with an easy back door to access data on people’s devices, we heard loud whining coming from the FBI and various security proponents that this would be bad for security.

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