FTC Completes Modifications to the Health Breach Notification Rule

Crikey, mates! Have you heard about the recent happenings across the pond? The lot at the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC for short, have been hard at work making updates to a thing they call the Health Breach Notification Rule. Yes, indeed, they’ve crossed their T’s and dotted their I’s, providing some important changes we need to sit up and take notice of.

Now, you might be asking yourself, what is the Health Breach Notification Rule or HBNR for those who love an abbreviation? Well, let’s break it down. In its simplest form, it’s about keeping people in the loop when something goes south with their health data. You know, those pesky data breaches that have, let’s just say, a less than pleasant habit of causing our eyebrows to reach well past our hairlines, while we hurriedly change all of our passwords.

Under the HBNR, organizations have a responsibility to keep us alerted when things go pear-shaped. Whether it’s a lost laptop with confidential patient data or a hacking incident that compromises health records, it’s all about keeping us in the picture. The parliament of our online health world, if you will.

Now, these chaps at the FTC have sat down and thought to themselves: “Mmm, perhaps a spot of modernisation wouldn’t go amiss here.” For you see, mates, we’re now dealing with far more than dusty old filing cabinets stuffed with paper records. Today, health data isn’t just from the doctor’s office; it’s generated by our Fitbits, health applications, and other similar technology.

With this in mind, the FTC are ringing in the changes and tightening up the rules. They’re making crystal clear that health apps and the like are not playing a game of Snakes and Ladders when it comes to complying. They’re just as much part of this as everyone else – no skirting around or slipshod attempts at compliance will be tolerated.

And it’s not just about making sure everyone knows they’re part of the club. No, this is also about making sure we, the people, get the information we need when there’s a breach. It’s not okay to just say, “Oops, sorry, we’ve had a bit of a data hiccup.” Heavens, no! The FTC wants these organisations to provide us with the full low down, the whys, hows, and the sorry-we’ve-made-a-booboo, so we know precisely what’s going on.

So there you have it, chaps. The FTC over there in the US have been putting a bit of spit and polish on their rules. They’re making sure that as we move forward in this digital age, our health data is protected, and we’re kept informed when things go wrong. It’s clear as a bell; whether you’re a traditional healthcare service or a health app, your responsibility to protect and inform remain the same. And that, my friends, has got to be a good thing!

by Parker Bytes