Jonathan Mollod

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The Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) has long been described as the floor for health care privacy laws and that states and regulators are free to enact more restrictive health care privacy laws. Last week, Washington state became the first state in the nation to codify into law broad protections for consumer health data that go well beyond HIPAA.

As the National Security Agency (NSA) noted in its 2022 cybersecurity yearly review, “[c]yberspace is dangerous.”

Reports of sophisticated cyberattacks and ransomware threats were prevalent in the past year. The government, manufacturers, and others further developed standards for securing digital infrastructure like 5G, cloud services, cryptography, internet protocols, and…

On March 2, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had reached a $7.8 million settlement with mental health and online counseling platform, BetterHelp, Inc. (“BetterHelp”). The FTC alleged that BetterHelp shared  consumers’ sensitive health data combined with other personal information (PI) with third party advertising platforms without first obtaining affirmative consent and allegedly contrary to certain privacy representations. The proposed order requires the company to pay $7.8 million in partial refunds to BetterHelp customers. This is the first time that the FTC has required a company to return money to its customers whose personal information was shared without consent. Going forward BetterHelp is not permitted to share sensitive health information and PI without obtaining affirmative consent from the patients and customers. BetterHelp is also required to overhaul its privacy program and request that any outside parties that received the consumers’ sensitive data delete such information.

On December 1, 2022, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Bulletin to highlight the obligations of HIPAA-covered entities and business associates when using “online tracking technologies,” or what OCR describes as “script or code on a website or mobile…

Roughly two weeks apart, on July 21, 2022 and August 5, 2022, respectively, Amazon made headlines for agreeing to acquire One Medical, “a human-centered and technology-powered primary care organization,” for approximately $3.9 billion and iRobot, a global consumer robot company, known for its creation of the Roomba vacuum…

As summer nears its end, uncertainty and complexity lie ahead for many companies as they evaluate how to operationalize compliance with the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), existing California employment laws and potentially the passage of a federal privacy law, the American Data Protection and Privacy Act, H.R. 8152…

On August 24, 2022, California Attorney General (AG) Rob Bonta announced a settlement with beauty products retailer, Sephora USA, Inc. (“Sephora”), resolving claims that Sephora violated the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) for, among other things, failing to disclose to consumers that it was selling their personal information (including precise…

On August 11, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) and announced it was exploring a rulemaking process to “crack down on harmful commercial surveillance” and lax data security.  The agency defines commercial surveillance as “the collection, aggregation, analysis, retention, transfer, or monetization…