Department of Health and Human Services Offers HIPAA Guidance on Online Tracking Technologies

Data privacy and healthcare attorneys Paul Bond, Shannon Hartsfield, Ilenna Stein, Mark Melodia wrote an article that was featured in the Journal of Federal Agency Action, about privacy issues between patients and healthcare companies relating to cookies, pixels and other tracking technologies. The authors talk about the stance that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR), has taken after getting involved in this public debate. This article covers the shift from whether tracking tools on websites and apps infringe on consumer privacy by allowing their information to be shared to claims that healthcare companies specifically are improperly disclosing patient confidences by integrating digital advertising, analytics and security tools into the code on public websites. The authors explain the pushback that healthcare companies have shared, stating that these tools are ubiquitous on the internet and serve legitimate business purposes.

The authors also published a Holland & Knight alert on this topic.

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