Opinion: Where are HHS and the FTC on online privacy for people with substance use disorder?
Online services may be enormously beneficial for people with substance use disorder. But they may also collect very sensitive data.
The era of rampant, unconsented, and unregulated online data collection may finally be winding down for consumer health data. But the advances in consumer privacy have not yet fully reached the millions of people with health information related to their drug use, substance use disorder treatment, or recovery.
In July, two key agencies for consumer health privacy, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Trade Commission, sent letters to 130 hospital systems and telehealth providers cautioning against the use of online trackers that may be impermissibly sharing consumers’ sensitive health data. Similarly, last year, the agencies worked together in releasing a tool to clarify which federal privacy laws might apply to health apps and the consumer data they collect, generate, use, store, and share.
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