Yes. They committed an illegal act; now they are being sued over it.
[Hipaa was't designed for this]
HIPAA was designed to protect medical records from falling into unauthorized hands and/or being misused or mishandled. So yes, this is a HIPAA violation, probably of unprecedented size and scope.
[If the government used this information for other cases] The cases would be thrown out almost immediately
The government routinely intercepts information that it can't use in court because of the way it was obtained. They use it as a starting point. If someone has told their psychiatrist that they were embezzling funds, for example, and this was in their records, they could use that information to know where to begin looking and prosecute a crime that they would not have otherwise known about.
Yes. They committed an illegal act; now they are being sued over it.
They're being sued in civil court because this would be laughed out of criminal court.
So yes, this is a HIPAA violation, probably of unprecedented size and scope.
You don't have any idea whether or not this is a HIPAA violation, so stop pretending like you do.
1. The law makes clear exceptions for information gathered during the course of an investigation.
2. Health information is supposed to be encrypted in transit or at rest, so if the company was in compliance, there's a distinct possibility that the data isn't even accessible.
The government routinely intercepts information that it can't use
in court because of the way it was obtained. They use it as a starting
point. If someone has told their psychiatrist that they were embezzling
funds, for example, and this was in their records, they could use that
information to know where to begin looking and prosecute a crime that
they would not have otherwise known about.
Citation?
I'll leave it to the courts to determine the outcome, but I predict this is the last we hear of this.
If they knowingly took HIPAA-protected records, and the taking of those records was outside the scope of the search warrant, they violated HIPAA. You can spew your pro-government nonsense all you want, but that simple fact cannot be changed.
They where authorized to have access to that machine and the data on it. HIPAA is just one law amoung many and you can't assume it automatically overrides everything else just because you are emotionally atached to the idea.
Yes. They committed an illegal act; now they are being sued over it.
[Hipaa was't designed for this]
HIPAA was designed to protect medical records from falling into unauthorized hands and/or being misused or mishandled. So yes, this is a HIPAA violation, probably of unprecedented size and scope.
[If the government used this information for other cases] The cases would be thrown out almost immediately
The government routinely intercepts information that it can't use in court because of the way it was obtained. They use it as a starting point. If someone has told their psychiatrist that they were embezzling funds, for example, and this was in their records, they could use that information to know where to begin looking and prosecute a crime that they would not have otherwise known about.