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Pharmacies sharing medical data without police warrant: Congressional investigation (thehill.com)

submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

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A congressional investigation has discovered that law enforcement agencies have been accessing patient prescription records through pharmacies without warrants, with most people unaware that their private data is being handed over to authorities.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, along with Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Sara Jacobs (Calif.) alerted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of what they’ve uncovered.

“Through briefings with the major pharmacies, we learned that each year law enforcement agencies secretly obtain the prescription records of thousands of Americans without a warrant. In many cases, pharmacies are handing over sensitive medical records without review by a legal professional,” the lawmakers said in a letter to HHS.

“Although pharmacies are legally permitted to tell their customers about government demands for their data, most don’t,” they continued. “As a result, many Americans’ prescription records have few meaningful privacy protections, and those protections vary widely depending on which pharmacy they use.”

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[–] Chetzemoka@startrek.website 3 points 11 months ago

their staff faced extreme pressure to provide an immediate response. As such, their staff are instructed to process records requests in-store. CVS Health and Kroger apparently both argued that their staff are trained to respond to these requests and have access legal departments if they have questions.

The real story here. What kind of company leaves its front line retail staff (who they are deliberately understaffing) to be the ones having to deal with aggressive police officers (in front of all the rest of their very busy customers, no doubt)