data privacy

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Increasing oversight of tech companies, particularly in the realm of consumer privacy, has been a rare example of bipartisan agreement. Despite data privacy being a growing concern for consumers, however, there has been relatively little federal policymaking. To counteract this lack of action, some states have stepped in to fill…

On July 20, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“OCR”) announced that they had sent a warning letter to about 130 hospital systems and telehealth providers, alerting them about the risks and concerns of using online tracking technologies, such as the Meta/Facebook pixel and Google Analytics, which can track users’ online activities.

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.

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.

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 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…

The FTC indicated that it will use its rulemaking authority under the FTC Act’s Section 18 to create a new rule that will likely seek to rein in broad data collection and use.

In October 2021, FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter made two speeches in which she expressed a desire to move beyond the FTC’s “notice-and-consent” framework to address broader surveillance practices that underlie the digital advertising economy, specifically by applying “bright-line purpose and use restrictions that minimize the data that can be collected and how it can be deployed.”