In case you missed it, below are recent posts from Privacy World covering the latest developments on data privacy, security and innovation. Please reach out to the authors if you are interested in additional information.
Singapore Progresses Towards Amended Cybersecurity Law | Privacy World
Washington’s My Health My Data Act (“MHMDA”) and Nevada’s SB 370 (“NV CHD Law”) (collectively, “CHD Laws”) went into effect at the end of last month, on March 31, 2024 (as many know, MHMDA’s geofencing prohibition went into effect last summer). Unlike the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”), a federal law which governs privacy and security in traditional healthcare settings, CHD Laws regulate “consumer health data” or “CHD”– a very broadly defined term as we discuss below and in a prior post – collected by companies in a broad swath of health and non-health related industries alike. Even ancillary purposes like providing accessibility accommodations and defending personal injury claims are enough to trigger the laws. CHD Laws impose restrictions and obligations on regulated entities far more burdensome than state consumer privacy laws, many of which already regulate some of the same health data, and unlike those general consumer privacy laws are not proposed to be preempted by the potential federal America Privacy Rights Act.
As such, compliance programs that businesses may have developed to comply with state consumer privacy laws, such as the California Privacy Protection Act (“CCPA”), will not be sufficient to address the requirements of the CHD Laws, though they can be leveraged such as for consumer rights request and processor management. There are some material differences beyond the scope of the data regulated. For example, businesses must add another website footer link (and potentially elsewhere, such as in mobile apps) and post a separate privacy policy applicable to the processing of CHD. The facilitation of consumer rights must be CHD-specific, for example providing the right to delete just CHD, rather than all personal information. Moreover, businesses that have CHD use cases not within narrow exceptions (e.g., as necessary to provide a requested product or service), which differ somewhat as between the two laws, will have to grapple with the foreboding consent and authorization requirements which, in some cases, could result in subjecting visitors or customers to a litany of notices and pop-ups in an environment already plagued by what some dub as “consent fatigue.”Continue Reading Are you Ready for Washington and Nevada’s Consumer Health Data Laws?
In 2020, when the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) came into effect, the privacy landscape in the US changed forever. Fast forward three years, we now have close to a dozen states that have passed consumer privacy laws, with the second generation of consumer privacy laws giving particular attention to sensitive data. In particular, there is an emerging trend, in both new legislation and enforcement of existing privacy and consumer protection regimes, towards a focus on the collection, use, and sharing or selling of health-related personal information, specifically information that is outside the scope of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).[1] The effect is a restriction on what publishers, advertisers, and other commercial enterprises can do with consumer health information, often broadly defined to include any past, present or future health status or inference regardless of sensitivity (e.g., acne or a headache). These developments include:
Continue Reading Health (and Health-ish) Data and Advertising Under Scrutiny