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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
by austincheney 9y ago
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.
- sjg007 9y agoI 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.
- dsp1234 9y agoApple 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/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/covered-entities...
- sjg007 9y agoApple is most likely a business associate by definition.
- dajohnson89 9y ago>known to a third party without your consent. Sneaky suspicion: consent is given upon account registration.
- sjg007 9y agoMaybe, 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.
- austincheney 9y ago> 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.
- fragmede 9y agoFacebook 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?
- austincheney 9y agoNo, 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.