Dive Brief:
The House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into how firms are dealing with delicate health data within the wake of the Supreme Court’s determination to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The committee despatched letters to 5 data dealer firms and 5 private health apps asking for info concerning how they retailer and handle person data, together with whether or not they promote or share it with third events.
Democrats in Congress have been more and more urging federal companies to extend data privateness safety for sufferers looking for abortions. Now, they’re stepping extra instantly into oversight themselves.
Dive Insight:
A wave of pink states have severely restricted entry or criminalized abortion following the Supreme Court’s ruling late final month. Currently, 11 states have banned abortion fully or have severely restricted the process, based on the Guttmacher Institute.
Roughly half of all U.S. states are anticipated to ultimately enact bans or different restrictions to the process, leading to hundreds of thousands of individuals dropping entry to abortion providers.
Some state legislatures have instructed going after sufferers who search abortion in different states or suppliers who carry out them, giving rise to fears that non-public and medical data might be used to establish these individuals. That potentiality is being taken critically by abortion advocates and lawmakers, particularly provided that digital information like textual content messages, browser histories and emails have been used to prosecute pregnancy-related legal fees prior to now.
Reproductive health apps have confronted vital data privateness considerations even earlier than Roe’s fall. One current research discovered that 87% of the 23 most-popular ladies’s health apps shared person data with third events, regardless of solely 52% requiring consent.
Data brokers have additionally been caught promoting person data. For instance, location data agency SafeGraph bought every week’s price of personal location data on individuals who visited abortion clinics in May for $160.
“The collection of delicate data may pose severe threats to these looking for reproductive care in addition to to suppliers of such care, not solely by facilitating intrusive authorities surveillance, but in addition by placing individuals prone to harassment, intimidation, and even violence,” Oversight and Reform Chairwomen Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., and Sarah Jacobs, D-Calif., wrote within the letters.
The letters requesting info and paperwork concerning data privateness, collection, distribution, use and sale had been despatched to SafeGraph, Digital Envoy, Placer.ai, Gravy Analytics, Babel Street, Flo Health, Glow, BioWink, GP International and Digitalchemy Ventures. The firms have till July 21 to conform.
Earlier this month, Democrat senators requested the Biden administration to replace the HIPAA privateness regulation to forestall health data from being shared with any regulation enforcement companies focusing on individuals who have an abortion. In addition, 72 members of Congress urged the Federal Trade Commission to make use of its full energy to safeguard sufferers towards data brokers accumulating and promoting data that might be used to prosecute abortion-related crimes.
President Joe Biden on Friday signed an govt order aimed toward defending abortion entry nationwide. The order calls on the FTC and the HHS to contemplate issuing new HIPAA steerage.
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/house-oversight-committee-investigation-reproductive-health-data/626877/
