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Inadequate Privacy: The Necessity Of Hipaa Reform In A Post-Dobbs World, Katherine Robertson Jan 2023

Inadequate Privacy: The Necessity Of Hipaa Reform In A Post-Dobbs World, Katherine Robertson

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Comment will provide an overview of HIPAA and the legal impacts of Dobbs. Part II will discuss the anticipatory response to the impacts of Dobbs on PHI by addressing the response from (1) the states, (2) the Biden Administration, and (3) the medical field. Part III will discuss the loopholes that exist in HIPAA and further address the potential impacts on individuals and the medical field if reform does not occur. Finally, Part IV will argue that the reform of HIPAA is the best avenue for protecting PHI related to reproductive healthcare.


Privacy, Freedom, And Technology—Or “How Did We Get Into This Mess?”, Alex Alben Apr 2019

Privacy, Freedom, And Technology—Or “How Did We Get Into This Mess?”, Alex Alben

Seattle University Law Review

Can we live in a free society without personal privacy? The question is worth pondering, not only in light of the ongoing debate about government surveillance of private communications, but also because new technologies continue to erode the boundaries of our personal space. This Article examines our loss of freedom in a variety of disparate contexts, all connected by the thread of erosion of personal privacy. In the scenarios explored here, privacy reducing activities vary from government surveillance, personal stalking conducted by individuals, and profiling by data-driven corporations, to political actors manipulating social media platforms. In each case, new technologies …


Gdpr Compliance—It Takes A Village, Susy Mendoza Apr 2019

Gdpr Compliance—It Takes A Village, Susy Mendoza

Seattle University Law Review

When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in May of 2018, many legal departments were confronted with the gravity of just how they were going to comply with such a wide-reaching law. If you have international customers (both direct to consumer or business to business), it is not hard to convince your general counsel that compliance with the GDPR is a must. You may even be able to get the chief technical officer (CTO) or chief operating officer (COO) onboard just by mentioning the steep fines—two to four percent of worldwide gross revenue. But how does the …


Footprints: Privacy For Enterprises, Processors, And Custodians…Oh My!, Blair Witzel, Carrie Mount Apr 2019

Footprints: Privacy For Enterprises, Processors, And Custodians…Oh My!, Blair Witzel, Carrie Mount

Seattle University Law Review

Americans’ interest in privacy—as evidenced by increasing news coverage, online searches, and new legislation—has grown over the past decade. After the European Union enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), technologists and legal professionals have focused on primary collectors of data—known under various legal regimes as the “controller” or “custodian.” Thanks to advances in computing, many of these data collectors offload the processing of data to third parties providing data-related cloud services like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. In addition to the data they have already collected about the data subjects themselves, these companies now “hold” that data on behalf of …


Confiding In Con Men: U.S. Privacy Law, The Gdpr, And Information Fiduciaries, Lindsey Barrett Apr 2019

Confiding In Con Men: U.S. Privacy Law, The Gdpr, And Information Fiduciaries, Lindsey Barrett

Seattle University Law Review

In scope, ambition, and animating philosophy, U.S. privacy law and Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation are almost diametric opposites. The GDPR’s ambitious individual rights, significant prohibitions, substantive enforcement regime, and broad applicability contrast vividly with a scattershot U.S. regime that generally prioritizes facilitating commerce over protecting individuals, and which has created perverse incentives for industry through anemic enforcement of the few meaningful limitations that do exist. A privacy law that characterizes data collectors as information fiduciaries could coalesce with the commercial focus of U.S. law, while emulating the GDPR’s laudable normative objectives and fortifying U.S. consumer privacy law with a …


Privacy Statements Under The Gdpr, Mike Hintze Apr 2019

Privacy Statements Under The Gdpr, Mike Hintze

Seattle University Law Review

The need to include specific types of information in a privacy statement is a GDPR compliance obligation that does not get as much attention as some other GDPR requirements. Perhaps that is because privacy statements have been much maligned in recent years. They are too long and full of legalese. Nobody reads them. They are part of a notice and consent approach to privacy that puts an unrealistic burden on consumers to make informed choices. But despite these well-known criticisms, the GDPR doubles down on privacy statements. In fact, gauging by the roughly fourfold increase in privacy statement requirements compared …


When A Tent Is Your Castle: Constitutional Protection Against Unreasonable Searches Of Makeshift Dwellings Of Unhoused Persons, Evanie Parr Feb 2019

When A Tent Is Your Castle: Constitutional Protection Against Unreasonable Searches Of Makeshift Dwellings Of Unhoused Persons, Evanie Parr

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will argue that all jurisdictions should follow the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division II in validating makeshift dwellings used by people experiencing homelessness as spaces protected from unwarranted police intrusions by shifting evaluations of “reasonable expectations of privacy” to a more equitable standard that appreciates the realities of economic disparity. This approach to constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures is imperative to protect the rights of people experiencing homelessness, given that such individuals are regularly subjected to invasions of privacy and heightened exposure to the criminal justice system.


Recording A New Frontier In Evidence-Gathering: Police Body-Worn Cameras And Privacy Doctrines In Washington State, Katie Farden Oct 2016

Recording A New Frontier In Evidence-Gathering: Police Body-Worn Cameras And Privacy Doctrines In Washington State, Katie Farden

Seattle University Law Review

This Note contributes to a growing body of work that weighs the gains that communities stand to make from police body-worn cameras against the tangle of concerns about how cameras may infringe on individual liberties and tread on existing privacy laws. While police departments have quickly implemented cameras over the past few years, laws governing the use of the footage body-worn cameras capture still trail behind. Notably, admissibility rules for footage from an officer’s camera, and evidence obtained with the help of that footage, remain on the horizon. This Note focuses exclusively on Washington State’s laws. It takes a clinical …


Reconsidering The History Of Open Courts In The Digital Age, Rory B. O'Sullivan, Catherine Connell Jul 2016

Reconsidering The History Of Open Courts In The Digital Age, Rory B. O'Sullivan, Catherine Connell

Seattle University Law Review

Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution of the State of Washington guarantees, “Justice in all cases shall be administered openly, and without unnecessary delay.” The Washington State Supreme Court has interpreted this clause to guarantee the public a right to attend legal proceedings and to access court documents separate and apart from the rights of the litigants themselves. Based on this interpretation, the court has struck down laws protecting the identity of both juvenile victims of sexual assault and individuals subject to involuntary commitment hearings. Its interpretation has also compromised the privacy rights of litigants wrongly named in legal …


Wearable Fitness Devices: Personal Health Data Privacy In Washington State, Steven Spann Jul 2016

Wearable Fitness Devices: Personal Health Data Privacy In Washington State, Steven Spann

Seattle University Law Review

Private entities are increasingly targeting individuals in the United States and around the world to gather personal data for such purposes as product development, market identification, and insurance risk assessment. While credit card records and online browsing histories have long been the medium through which this data is gathered, in more recent years, wearable fitness devices have added a new dimension to data production and collection. These devices are capable of gathering a significant amount of data regarding a person’s physical and physiological characteristics, thereby exposing these data producers to personal privacy infringement. Washington State lawmakers and citizens must be …


Blood And Privacy: Towards A "Testing-As-Search" Paradigm Under The Fourth Amendment, Andrei Nedelcu Nov 2015

Blood And Privacy: Towards A "Testing-As-Search" Paradigm Under The Fourth Amendment, Andrei Nedelcu

Seattle University Law Review

A vehicle on a public thoroughfare is observed driving erratically and careening across the roadway. After the vehicle strikes another passenger car and comes to a stop, the responding officer notices in the driver the telltale symptoms of intoxication—bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and a distinct odor of intoxicants. On these facts, a lawfully-procured warrant authorizing the extraction of the driver’s blood is obtained. However, the document fails to circumscribe the manner and variety of testing that may be performed on the sample. Does this lack of particularity render the warrant constitutionally infirm as a mandate for chemical analysis of the …


Authorized Investigation: A Temperate Alternative To Cyber Insecurity, Casey M. Bruner Jul 2015

Authorized Investigation: A Temperate Alternative To Cyber Insecurity, Casey M. Bruner

Seattle University Law Review

This Note aims to show that legal structures created to protect the Internet in its original form are completely insufficient to protect what the Internet has become. This antiquated legal framework is exacerbating the problem. The breadth of activity that the current law restricts severely limits the remedies that cyberattack victims can pursue, and it must be updated. While full hack-back may prove necessary in the long run, I argue for a more temperate initial response to the problem—I call this response “authorized investigation.” Specifically, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act should be amended to allow victims access to their …


The Communication Decency Act Gone Wild: A Case For Renewing The Presumption Against Preemption, Ryan J.P. Dyer Mar 2014

The Communication Decency Act Gone Wild: A Case For Renewing The Presumption Against Preemption, Ryan J.P. Dyer

Seattle University Law Review

Since its inception, the Internet has disseminated the most vital commodity known to man—information. But not all information is societally desirable. In fact, much of what the Internet serves to disseminate is demonstrably criminal. Nevertheless, in the effort to unbind the “vibrant and competitive free market” of ideas on the Internet, Congress enacted section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which essentially grants immunity to interactive computer service providers from liability for information provided by a third party. This Comment suggests that, in certain contexts, courts applying section 230 immunity should reexamine the preemptive effect Congress intended section 230 to …


Public Duties, Private Rights: Privacy And Unsubstantiated Allegations In Washington’S Public Records Act, Robert E. Miller May 2013

Public Duties, Private Rights: Privacy And Unsubstantiated Allegations In Washington’S Public Records Act, Robert E. Miller

Seattle University Law Review

Open government laws allow private citizens to monitor public servants. But this vital function of access presents a clash of competing interests: the privacy of public employees versus the public’s right to know. Washington’s Public Records Act (PRA) seeks to balance these interests, and the Washington Supreme Court has fought to adhere to the PRA’s spirit of open government while creating bright-line rules for the ease of government agencies. The Bainbridge Island Police Guild court held that investigative reports of unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct against public officials are highly offensive to a reasonable person and that the public has …


“Lonesome Road”: Driving Without The Fourth Amendment, Lewis R. Katz May 2013

“Lonesome Road”: Driving Without The Fourth Amendment, Lewis R. Katz

Seattle University Law Review

The protections of the Fourth Amendment on the streets and highways of America have been drastically curtailed. This Article traces the debasement of Fourth Amendment protections on the road and how the Fourth Amendment’s core value of preventing arbitrary police behavior has been marginalized. This Article contends that the existence of a traffic offense should not be the end of the inquiry but the first step, and that defendants should be able to challenge the reasonableness even when there is proof of a traffic offense.


The Law And Policy Of Online Privacy: Regulation, Self-Regulation, Or Co-Regulation?, Dennis D. Hirsch Jan 2011

The Law And Policy Of Online Privacy: Regulation, Self-Regulation, Or Co-Regulation?, Dennis D. Hirsch

Seattle University Law Review

The Internet poses grave new threats to information privacy. Search engines collect and store our search queries; websites track our online activity and then sell this information to others; and Internet Search Providers read the very packets of information through which we interact with the Internet. Yet the debate over how best to address this problem has ground to a halt, stuck between those who call for a vigorous legislative response and those who advocate for market solutions and self-regulation. In 1995, the European Union member states began to build a third approach into their data protection laws, one in …


Hipaa Hypocrisy And The Case For Enforcing Federal Privacy Standards Under State Law, Daniel J. Oates Jan 2007

Hipaa Hypocrisy And The Case For Enforcing Federal Privacy Standards Under State Law, Daniel J. Oates

Seattle University Law Review

Part II of this Comment summarizes the background of the HIPAA statute as an attempted solution to the privacy problem described above, including its legislative history and HHS promulgation of administrative rules. Next, Part III addresses the agency-imposed limitations on the scope of the statute. The Secretary's decision to rely solely on an administrative complaint process, combined with the government's narrow interpretation of the statute granting third parties immunity from penalties, has undermined enforcement of the privacy provision. Accordingly, Part IV discusses previous attempts to circumvent the administrative limitations by creating a private right of action and the reasons these …


Revisiting The Voyeurism Value In The First Amendment: From The Sexually Sordid To The Details Of Death, Clay Calvert Jan 2004

Revisiting The Voyeurism Value In The First Amendment: From The Sexually Sordid To The Details Of Death, Clay Calvert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article takes a fresh look at the question of "whether the First Amendment freedom of the press will protect our desire to watch against claims of invasion of privacy and other intrusive newsgathering practices [,]" and the fundamental tension between maintaining privacy and accelerating voyeurism, while addressing the notions of geographic privacy and newsworthiness that are critical in this conflict. In particular, this article surveys five specific and cutting-edge areas in the law that demonstrate the conflict between privacy and voyeurism and the legal system's struggles to reconcile the two concepts. Each of these is an area that has …


You Know More Than You Think: State V. Townsend, Imputed Knowledge, And Implied Consent Under The Washington Privacy Act, James A. Pautler Jan 2004

You Know More Than You Think: State V. Townsend, Imputed Knowledge, And Implied Consent Under The Washington Privacy Act, James A. Pautler

Seattle University Law Review

Townsend is worth examining for two additional reasons. First, Townsend illustrates the palpable need for the legislature to update the WPA. The underlying problem in Townsend was the application of a statute that was written in the era of rotary telephones to the issues that arise in modem electronic communications. Because of the inherent differences between electronic and traditional media, novel questions invariably arise that cannot be readily answered by resorting to existing doctrines. Finally, the plain language of the current statute has absurd results when applied to the modem infrastructure of the Internet. Part II of this Note discusses …


The Plain Feel Doctrine In Washington: An Opportunity To Provide Greater Protections Of Privacy To Citizens Of This State, Laura T. Bradley Jan 1995

The Plain Feel Doctrine In Washington: An Opportunity To Provide Greater Protections Of Privacy To Citizens Of This State, Laura T. Bradley

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment argues that Washington should return to an independent analysis of search and seizure doctrine under article I, section 7 of the state constitution and reject the admission of contraband seized during the course of a pat-down frisk. The decisions in Hudson and Dickerson have established an unnecessary and unworkable standard, and involve an increased invasion of personal privacy without the counter-balancing need to protect the safety of others. The plain feel doctrine as announced in Dickerson and Hudson developed from two well-established concepts in search and seizure law-the Terry frisk of persons to discover weapons and the plain …


Survey Of Washington Search And Seizure Law, Justice Robert F. Utter Jan 1985

Survey Of Washington Search And Seizure Law, Justice Robert F. Utter

Seattle University Law Review

This Survey is designed to assist lawyers and judges who must argue and resolve search and seizure issues in Washington State. The Survey summarizes the controlling state and federal cases on search and seizure law and uses as an additional reference W. LAFAVE, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment (1978). Washington courts are likely to analyze future search and seizure issues under both the fourth amendment and Washington Constitution article I, section 7. The difference in wording between the two provisions is substantial, suggesting different degrees or types of privacy protection. This Survey summarizes the predominant treatment …