ABA Science & Technology Law Section: Privacy and Emerging Technology Institute and Spring Meeting

Foley & Lardner is proud to support the American Bar Association (ABA) Science & Technology Law Section’s (SciTech) Spring Meeting. The event will feature ABA’s new Privacy and Emerging Technology Institute, other programming on the hottest SciTech topics, brainstorming sessions on issues that matter, networking events, and the section’s 50^th anniversary celebration. Jennifer Urban (Partner, Milwaukee) and Steve Millendorf (Partner, San Diego) be speaking at the following sessions:

Health Care Data in the Palm of Your Hand (and Many Other Hands): What That Means for Privacy | 1:45 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.

Wednesday, April 17

Health data is changing hands. When the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules were written, health information was concentrated in the hands of traditional health care providers, such as doctors, hospitals, and health plans. Two decades later, with revolutionary advances in technology, we have a wide range of other organizations (including data brokers and mobile health apps) that also are generating and collecting sensitive health information. Although many hands often can make for light work, the opposite can be true when it comes to privacy and security issues for sensitive health care data. Many of these new hands are sometimes holding health care data outside the bounds of HIPAA, implicating general consumer protection law enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. The complexity grows when state laws, with their varying approaches, enter the picture. Meanwhile, Congress continues to refine bipartisan proposals for a new cross-sectoral privacy framework, considering on the one hand how to address existing sector-specific laws and regulations while on the other hand taking steps to enable dynamic technology development and competition (all while protecting patient data across all use cases). Join this panel to explore:

Opportunities and challenges facing the health care privacy field as the players with access to data change.
The FTC’s latest guidance on health data privacy in today’s surveillance economy.
Strategic approaches for businesses to protect Americans’ health care privacy in today’s policy and legal environments.
Steps that Congress should consider moving forward, and how the digital health ecosystem can work together to accomplish these needed steps.

Moderator: Ericka Watson (Chief Privacy Officer, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)

Panelists:

Graham Dufault (General Counsel, Connected Health Initiative)
Robin (Bobbi) Rosen Spector (Senior Attorney, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, Federal Trade Commission)
Jennifer Urban (Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP)

Alphabet Soup: A Practical Recipe for Complying With Comprehensive State Privacy Laws | 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Wednesday, April 17

With at least seven comprehensive state privacy laws enacted in 2023, a half dozen enacted before that, and many more bills introduced, U.S. businesses have a lot on their plates when it comes to privacy compliance. Going by acronyms such as CPRA, CTDPA, CoCPA, DPDPA, InCDPA, IaCDPA, OCPA, TDPSA, VCDPA, and UCPA, these privacy laws constitute a rather complex alphabet soup. Then mix in the extra-territorial scope of some international privacy laws like GDPR (the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation). It doesn’t take long to realize that legal compliance is not just a simple matter of minding your Ps and Qs. These laws could spell trouble for businesses that don’t get it right. This panel will discuss: