Emergency U.S. legislation proposed for healthcare privacy protection
Looking to safeguard data not protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate reintroduced the Public Health Emergency Privacy Act that was first proposed last spring. It is meant to address security issues related to COVID-19 response.
Of 1,000 people in the US and UK, 82% reported they maintain moderate data privacy. But in practice 83% are somewhat comfortable sharing biometric data and 64% say they would consider trading data for more personalization and convenience.
In a clear demonstration of how difficult it can be for consumers to exercise their privacy rights, Consumer Reports found that even trained agents could not get many requests done successfully. Utilizing California's "authorized agent" provision, 124 Consumer Reports agents reached out to 21 companies, including Airbnb, Amazon, Comcast, Home Depot and Starbucks to use Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR) and other company privacy preference mechanisms to make account changes.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.