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Lawmakers Urge Biden to End ‘Warrantless Government Surveillance’ of Sensitive Health Data
More than three dozen members of Congress have signed a letter pressuring the Biden administration to step up and close an oversight in federal privacy law that allows law enforcement to obtain access to abortion records and other sensitive health data without a warrant.
Lawmakers writing the letter say additional protections are needed to strengthen the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to protect abortion seekers and other Americans from “warrantless government surveillance.”
Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services previously proposed adding a new rule to HIPPA that would prohibit doctors or healthcare providers from discussing patients’ protected health records following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe V. Wade.
In their letter, Sens. Ron Wyden, Patty Murray, and Rep. Sara Jacobs say the proposed expansions are “woefully insufficient” and urged the Biden administration to go a step further and ensure that all patients’ protected health information receives the same level of protection as text messages, calls, and location data.
In-N-Out Burger Bans Employees From Wearing Masks in Five States
In-N-Out Burger is prohibiting employees in five states from wearing masks unless they have a valid medical note starting on August 14.
Locations in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Nevada and Utah will prohibit masks. The popular burger chain noted in its guidelines that those who wear a mask for medical reasons may only wear company-approved N95 masks. Valid doctors’ notes must include the medical diagnosis, the reason for exemption and the estimated duration if applicable.
The memo was posted to social media from the In-N-Out Burger Associate Notifications email list. The new policy was created to create “clear and effective” customer and employee interaction.
If employees don’t follow the new company policy, they could face disciplinary action that could include being fired depending on the severity and frequency of the violation.
The HPV Vaccine Is a ‘Lifesaver,’ but Too Many Kids Aren’t Getting It. It’s Time for a Mandate.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
The most recent vaccination data show that the number of teens getting the vaccine has slowed, or even declined, over the last few years, and is much worse than other routine and required childhood vaccines.
In New Jersey, for instance, the rate of the first HPV vaccine dose has decreased since 2020, and only slightly more than half of N.J. teens are fully vaccinated against HPV. Pennsylvania’s rate — 69% — isn’t much better.
If New Jersey and Pennsylvania were to create an HPV vaccine school mandate, they wouldn’t be the first: Virginia, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia have already done so.
So what’s stopping other jurisdictions from moving forward with new regulations? For one, there is general resistance to childhood vaccination among a large segment of the population, which hasn’t been helped by the COVID-19 pandemic. Requirements for COVID-19 vaccination among adults have caused a backlash on mandates for any population, including school-age children.
B.C. Maintains COVID Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers
B.C.’s Ministry of Health confirms that the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for healthcare workers in the public system and care homes stands, a clarification it’s making in the wake of confusion over a bureaucratic change.
On Friday, the office of the Provincial Health Officer published a notice that regulators and colleges of healthcare professionals are not required to get the vaccination status of nurses, dentists, psychologists, doctors and others, but that doesn’t change the fact the workers must be vaccinated.
British Columbia is one of the few provinces to maintain a requirement for publicly-employed healthcare professionals to be vaccinated against the virus, though it dropped the requirement for other public employees.
HBO Dismissed From Class Action Lawsuit Over Sharing Subscribers’ Viewing History With Facebook
The Hollywood Reporter reported:
HBO won’t have to face a class action lawsuit accusing it of sharing subscribers’ personal viewing history with Facebook in violation of a federal data privacy law.
In a notice to the court, Max subscribers who brought the suit moved to dismiss it on Tuesday “without prejudice,” meaning they can refile or alter the claims. The plaintiffs dropped their case after a federal judge dismissed a similar suit against Scripps Network brought by the same firm that sued HBO on behalf of subscribers.
The legal challenges all center on allegations that companies using Meta’s Pixel tool, which allows advertisers to track users on websites to measure the effectiveness of ads and serve targeted ads, violates the Video Privacy Protection Act. The law carries damages of up to $2,500 per class member and allows consumers to sue for disclosure of information about their watching habits even without sustaining an injury.
Max subscribers Angel McDaniel and Constance Simon alleged in a suit filed last year that HBO discloses to Facebook the content they watch on top of other personally identifiable information without consent. Meta hasn’t been named in any of the complaints.
How to Make Big Tech Pay … Literally
A lifetime ago, I worked as a federal affairs manager at the center-right organization Americans for Tax Reform. My area of focus was technology policy, advocating for as much of a hands-off approach as possible by opposing net neutrality, and supporting online privacy and personal data protection.
It wasn’t the most exciting job in the world, but I believe it was important and still is. I may not work in that arena anymore, but I still follow the issues because today, everyone has to. When it comes to the digital world, the fight for freedom and privacy is never-ending, and all the concepts are just as important today as they were in 2007
Those “free” apps, websites and services everyone loves are never actually free. Online, if you are not the paying customer, you are the product. Those apps are fishing nets for data — your data. That data is then refined into gold for the companies that collect it.
Being the product brings with it an ever-increasing attempt to get more information from you, which creates a never-ending kabuki dance between Big Tech companies and the public. One thing the internet pioneered was the endlessly long, overly lawyered, confusing and always changing user agreements. When was the last time you read one of those? If you’re like me, it’s never.
Apple Spikes to All-Time High, Gains $60 Billion in Seconds on Report It’s Working on Own ChatGPT Tool
At a time when absolutely everyone (and their kitchen sink, cat and uncle) is working on their own version of chatGPT — because who wouldn’t want to be the next “biggest and best” AI frontrunner leading to an avalanche of term sheets from idiot investors such as Soft Bank — moments ago Apple, already the world’s largest company by market cap, just spiked 2%, gaining more than $60 billion in market cap in seconds, after Bloomberg reported that Apple is “quietly” (really? quietly?) working on artificial intelligence tools that could challenge those from (Microsoft‘s) OpenAI, Google and others … even though the company has “yet to devise a clear strategy for releasing the technology to consumers.”
Apple is doing to openAI what Facebook is doing to Twitter: copying and pasting with zero value added and zero creativity. Yet this is good enough to push the stock up $60 billion.
And this is where we are in the market: a place where what is obvious not only passes as news — because it would be news if Apple was not working on its own version of chatGPT as it has now become obvious even to 5-year-olds that AI is this generation’s blockchain/3Dprinter/cannabis etc — but results in ridiculous market cap gains for some, and losses for others (such as the value stocks which form the pair trade with tech).
AI to Predict Your Health Later in Life — All at the Press of a Button
Thanks to artificial intelligence, we will soon be able to predict our risk of developing serious health conditions later in life, at the press of a button.
Researchers from Edith Cowan University’s (ECU) School of Science and School of Medical and Health Sciences have collaborated to develop software that can analyze scans much, much faster: roughly 60,000 images in a single day.
Researcher and Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow Associate Professor Joshua Lewis said this significant boost in efficiency will be crucial for the widespread use of AAC in research and for helping people avoid developing health problems later in life.
Teladoc Expands Microsoft Tie-Up to Document Patient Visits With AI
Teladoc Health (TDOC.N) is expanding a partnership with Microsoft (MSFT.O) to use the tech giant’s artificial intelligence services to automate clinical documentation on the telehealth platform, lifting its shares 6% in premarket trade.
The integration of AI including Microsoft’s services with technology from OpenAI, owner of the viral chatbot ChatGPT, will help ease the burden on healthcare staff during virtual exams, Teladoc said on Tuesday.
The companies have been collaborating since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 when Teladoc integrated its Solo virtual healthcare platform into Microsoft Teams.
The use of AI is being actively discussed by hospitals and other healthcare providers that suffered from attrition caused by pandemic fatigue. Industries across the board have been looking at integrating AI into their businesses after the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November fueled interest in the breakthrough technology.
