A Texas judge on Friday temporarily blocked state Attorney General Ken Paxton from forcing an LGBTQ+ advocacy group to hand over information about transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care.
The ruling came just one day after PFLAG National went to court to try to stop Paxton’s office from getting the information.
Travis County District Court Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel said in an order that providing the information would harm PFLAG and its members in several ways, including violating their rights of free speech, association and protection from unreasonable searches. Additionally, the judge said, it would be a “gross invasion” of privacy.
Wouldn’t it be a HIPAA violation too?
HIPAA doesn’t protect you from the government legally obtaining records. It’s a shield for patients against having their medical data leaked to the public in various ways. This situation is beyond terrifying, but HIPAA doesn’t apply here.
That’s exactly what I came here to ask. It’s got to be at the very least, a HIPAA violation.
States can get their hands on things for criminal investigations. Or they can get that data in the infectious disease database but usually that’s carefully anonymized into general steps of ten… But this… This is some messed up shit
Yeah totally get that for criminals, but these poor children are not breaking the law in any way!
Not yet but they will be if conservatives get their way
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Neither the state of Texas nor PFLAG are “covered entities” under the HIPAA privacy rule. It does not apply to this situation.