Privacy Guides @lemmy.one Lee Duna @lemmy.nz 11 mo. ago

CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens hand out medical records to cops without warrants

arstechnica.com CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens hand out medical records to cops without warrants

Lawmakers want HHS to revise health privacy law to require warrants.

19 comments

For those of you who think you are using a local pharmacy, you might want to check whether or not they're owned by one of these. They buy out local pharmacies without obviously rebranding. And then they kill the store. At least, that's Rite Aid's MO.
It is crazy how in a country where everyone sues everyone all the time things like that happen. I had assumed that such a system would lead to a more robust system where every manager to ceo is vetting their business against these problems to not get sued. Apparently the liberal system of suing anyone all the time does not at all replaces a governmental body that defines strong consumer protection rights. Reading this, Turbotax and Wells Fargo News teaches me that a suing society is not cleansing itself from predatory behaviour.
- Your "everyone sues everyone all the time" presumption is not fact based.
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/24/america-litigious-society-myth
  
  Here is a list of the top 5 most litigious countries by capita: 1. Germany: 123.2/1,000 2. Sweden: 111.2/1,000 3. Israel: 96.8/1,000 4. Austria: 95.9/1,000 5. U.S.: 74.5/1,000. The Top 10 also includes the UK (64.4); Denmark (62.5); Hungary (52.4); Portugal (40.7); and France (40.3).
  
  As you can see, the risk of lawsuits in the U.S. is less than in Germany, Sweden, Israel, and Austria, and not much greater than the other countries listed in the top 10. Simply stated, Americans are not as litigious as many believe. While the large verdict against McDonalds for serving hot coffee received enormous publicity, that judgment was significantly reduced on appeal and the plaintiff spent the left of her life being ridiculed.
  
  https://eaccny.com/news/member-news/dont-let-these-10-legal-myths-stop-your-doing-business-in-the-u-s-myths-6-and-7-the-u-s-is-very-litigious-and-that-is-too-threatening-to-a-small-company-like-ours-as-a-result-the-risk/
  
  My perspective is that people in the USA are more likely to THREATEN to sue, which a lot of the time is an empty threat, and a lot harder to quantify
- People don’t sue as much as you think, we don’t have the money for lawyers.
I might be pretty stupid, but why would police even want medical information? In what way are medical records a help in any police duty?

Edit: thanks for the responses. My only comment is that these examples are fucking terrifying.
- Here’s a scary one:
  
  “patient is suspected of having an abortion give me medical records”
  
  “K here you go”
  
  First one that came to mind when I saw the title TBH. First it was period tracking apps, now this. Scary state of things
- Helps a cop gain evidence against a perp.
  
  "You're on this medication, we got it from X pharmacy. You shouldn't have been driving while on it, should you?"
- Finding weaknesses. If a person has breathing difficulties they can save time and don't need to put their knee on their neck for so long.
- I worked at a pharmacy and the only time it actually happened was when a patient tried to sell their Vicodin to an undercover cop outside the store. The cop came in and asked for the information about the prescription and we gave it to him.
  
  Freely admits on the internet to violating someone’s right to due process. But they were a druggie, so no biggie right?
  
  Tell him to come back with a warrant
This is the best summary I could come up with:

All of the big pharmacy chains in the US hand over sensitive medical records to law enforcement without a warrant—and some will do so without even running the requests by a legal professional, according to a congressional investigation.

Lawmakers noted the pharmacies' policies for releasing medical records in a letter dated Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra.

They include the seven largest pharmacy chains in the country: CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Cigna, Optum Rx, Walmart Stores, Inc., The Kroger Company, and Rite Aid Corporation.

The rest of the pharmacies—Amazon, Cigna, Optum Rx, Walmart, and Walgreens Boots Alliance—at least require that law enforcement requests be reviewed by legal professionals before pharmacists respond.

"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 three lawmakers wrote.

"Last year, CVS Health, the largest pharmacy in the nation by total prescription revenue, only received a single-digit number of such consumer requests," the lawmakers noted.

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