Pharmacies sharing medical data without police warrant: Congressional investigation

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A congressional investigation has discovered that law enforcement agencies have been accessing patient prescription records through pharmacies without warrants, with most people unaware that their private data is being handed over to authorities.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, along with Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Sara Jacobs (Calif.) alerted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of what they’ve uncovered.

“Through briefings with the major pharmacies, we learned that each year law enforcement agencies secretly obtain the prescription records of thousands of Americans without a warrant.

CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Kroger committed to publishing annual transparency reports on law enforcement demands before or during the course of the congressional inquiry.

Amazon Pharmacy notifies a customer prior to disclosing health information to law enforcement as long as there is no legal prohibition to doing so.

“We urge HHS to consider further strengthening its HIPAA regulations to more closely align them with Americans’ reasonable expectations of privacy and Constitutional principles,” the lawmakers wrote.

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2 comments

their staff faced extreme pressure to provide an immediate response. As such, their staff are instructed to process records requests in-store. CVS Health and Kroger apparently both argued that their staff are trained to respond to these requests and have access legal departments if they have questions.
Yeah, great corporate policy to force a bunch of criminally understaffed front line employees to try to add dealing with aggressive police officers to their daily tasks.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A congressional investigation has discovered that law enforcement agencies have been accessing patient prescription records through pharmacies without warrants, with most people unaware that their private data is being handed over to authorities.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, along with Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Sara Jacobs (Calif.) alerted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of what they’ve uncovered.
“Through briefings with the major pharmacies, we learned that each year law enforcement agencies secretly obtain the prescription records of thousands of Americans without a warrant.
CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Kroger committed to publishing annual transparency reports on law enforcement demands before or during the course of the congressional inquiry.
Amazon Pharmacy notifies a customer prior to disclosing health information to law enforcement as long as there is no legal prohibition to doing so.
“We urge HHS to consider further strengthening its HIPAA regulations to more closely align them with Americans’ reasonable expectations of privacy and Constitutional principles,” the lawmakers wrote.
The original article contains 713 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!