Hacker News Reader

Comment by sjg007 | Hacker News Reader

Interesting.. I wonder if these profiles fall under HIPAA.

Absolutely not. HIPAA regulates the medical and insurance industries, which Facebook is certainly not. If you broadcast medical data to the public or put it in a newspaper HIPAA does not apply, much like this case.

Best case scenario, and this is still a stretch, is that Facebook could be guilty of slander if they describe you has suicidal and that description becomes known to a third party without your consent.

I think it is unclear. For example Apple has HealthKit which collects health related data.. That data is probably HIPAA protected. If it's not (and if Facebook is not) then I would imagine we will see legislation and/or lawsuits to clarify things.

Apple is not a covered entity under HIPAA[0], and thus has no liability for the data it collects.

"If an entity does not meet the definition of a covered entity or business associate, it does not have to comply with the HIPAA Rules."

[0] - https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/covered-entities...

Apple is most likely a business associate by definition.

>known to a third party without your consent.

Sneaky suspicion: consent is given upon account registration.

Maybe, but I think health information disclosure has a lot of rules to it (at least based on my experience) where authorizations expire after 1 year etc... So I don't think a blanket exception applies. And although Facebook is a public forum not all communications are public per se so it's not clear what a disclosure is... maybe it is sufficient for Facebook to say that the information was "disclosed to us" and we are free to do what we want with it, including using an AI bot to alert emergency services. It seems like a big gray area.

> Facebook is a public forum not all communications are public per se so it's not clear what a disclosure is...

It doesn't matter. Once you surrender data to Facebook it is theirs to do whatever they want with. That is the disclosure. There is no gray area. If you don't want Facebook having that information then don't give it to them.

Facebook is known to collect key presses. If I express a desire to commit suicide in a status update, but don't actually post it, thus not showing it to anybody except Facebook, would that (should it?) be covered by HIPAA? What if I keep paper diary? What if it's in Google docs instead?

No, because you have no obligation to disclose anything to Facebook. If you choose to disclose this to Facebook that is your mistake. You absolutely must disclose medical information with a medical provider and with your insurance company.

> What if it's in Google docs instead?

If you didn't put it there than somebody has violated your privacy or violated HIPAA.

Doea medical data not talked about in a medical setting trigger HIPAA?

(Like me talking that I'm type 2 diabetic?)

I can't speak to HIPAA, but medical data is covered by the EU's new GDPR framework.

If you talk about it outside a privileged context, you're implicitly waiving the privacy protections.

For example, if you run into your physician in public, and say, "Hi Doc. Have you gotten my test results back yet?" you're the one pointing out that she's your doctor, not her. If she, unprompted, said something about your test results to you, she'd have violated HIPAA.

It's your privacy to waive as you please.

The P in HIPAA doesn't stand for Privacy.

No, it stands for "Portability."

HIPAA does, however, have a section explicitly governing the privacy of patient medical information, under Title II, generally known as "The Privacy Rule".

EDIT: Tone and specificity.

Probably.. any disclosure could potentially be regulated. This is a company creating a health care profile of you (possibly without your consent) and potentially sharing that information of you (without your consent or release) to other entities.. so maybe? I bet there will be several lawsuits to clarify things.

Unequivocally not. Posting to Facebook is a public disclosure Health data: no one, including your own physician, is obligated to protect that which you opt to publicly disclose.

We are talking about a Facebook AI program reading your posts and deciding if you are suicidal or not. I'm not even sure how you would clinically validate that and if it would require FDA clearance, but if you are forming a mental health opinion on a stream of data and contacting the government about it that is probably something that may need to be protected.

Whether or not one thinks it ought to be protected, there is no contortion of existing law that does so.

Well take a look at this: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/07/05/can-facebook-upd...

The medical school structured itnas a clinical trial with people volunteering to participate. Medical studies have different regulations than just reviewing public postings.

This is a reflection of the way they’ve chosen to go about things - no doubt in response to past kerfuffles - rather than an actual legal obligation on fb’s analysis of public materials.

HIPAA regs aren’t hidden from the public. Peruse at your leisure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com