Law Commons^™

Mission Creep: Public Health Surveillance And Medical Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

The National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program has parallels in the growth of disease surveillance for public health purposes. This article explores whether laws requiring health providers to report to government names and identifiable information about patients with infectious or chronic diseases may be vulnerable to challenge as an invasion of privacy. A shift in the use of disease surveillance data from investigating disease outbreaks to data mining and analysis for research, budgeting, and policy planning, as well as bioterrorism, tests the boundaries of liberty and privacy. The Supreme Court has not reviewed a disease reporting law. Its few related …