How Your Health Data Lead A Not-So-Secret Life Online; NPR, 7/30/16

Angus Chen, NPR; How Your Health Data Lead A Not-So-Secret Life Online:

"Medical information can be gleaned from all this and more, says Nathan Cortez, a professor of law at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.

A recent report from the Department of Health and Human Services showed that the vast majority of mobile health apps on the marketplace aren't covered by the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act. "HIPAA is pretty narrow as far as these things go. It applies only to traditional entities [like hospitals, doctors and health insurance providers], and it's not surprising. HIPAA was written by Congress in 1996 before we had health apps," Cortez says.

Apps or devices used in conjunction with a doctor's office or a hospital can't share or sell your information. But there's no definitive federal law governing what happens to the data that an app developer, tech company or private individual collects. Cortez and I spoke about what that means and what people can do with individuals' data."