Over the past year, the German government has been working on legislation to implement the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). On July 6, 2017, Germany did so by passing a statute titled the Data Protection Amendments and Implementation Act. The Act repeals Germany’s venerated Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, or BDSG) and replaces it […]
HIPAA/Health Information Privacy, Security & Breach Response
Anthem Settles Data Breach Litigation for Record-Setting $115M
Health insurance giant Anthem, Inc. agreed to the largest data breach settlement to-date last week, ending multi-district consumer litigation over a 2015 data breach for $115 million. The data breach, which resulted from a hacker-orchestrated cyberattack following the theft of an employee password, exposed personally identifiable information (“PII”) and protected health information (“PHI”) of nearly […]
Advocate Health Care Network Agrees to Pay $5.55 Million to Settle Potential HIPAA Penalties
On August 4, 2016, the Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced that Advocate Health Care Network (“Advocate”), Illinois’ largest fully-integrated health care system, has agreed to pay a record-breaking $5.55 million to settle claims of multiple Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) violations involving electronic protected health information (“ePHI”). The substantial settlement stems from […]
HHS/OCR Announces Launch of HIPAA Audit Program Phase 2
Today, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’s (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced the launch of Phase 2 of its HIPAA Compliance Audit Program. (OCR’s announcement can be accessed at Audit Phase 2 Announcement and further information about Phase 2 can be accessed at Audit Phase 2 Information.) In this phase, OCR will […]
HHS Issues HIPAA Security Rule Crosswalk with NIST Cybersecurity Framework
Last week, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a crosswalk between the requirements of the HIPAA Security Rule and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. The crosswalk – which was developed in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT – maps each […]