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Apple Watch Already Facing Questions Concerning User Privacy
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The long and short of it is healthcare privacy is important and has big dollar attached for violations. The US federal govt can and does fine both the violator and also can fine anyone who should have known about it and didn't report said violations. These start in the neighborhood of $50,000 and go up. So just say if Apples Watch server were to somehow get hacked and it held 1 Million peoples privileged health information. We you get the idea, buy buy Apple.
But press releases are not legally binding, and they are often not technically accurate. A press release may something that in the end means "trust us, we'll do the right thing" which doesn't tell you what exactly Apple would be doing.
AG is grandstanding, but these are questions that will be asked, so it's good to have them out there long before the launch. This is more for the public, since Apple obviously knows of all the privacy concerns if they sought help from the Mayo Clinic.
I mostly agree with you, but as the name suggests, it's aim is for health information to be portable (easily shared) and private. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
http://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-...PAAGenInfo/index.html?redirect=/hipaageninfo/
The privacy rules were created because of concerns over the portability of digitally-stored health records.
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Those big fines are for willful and uncorrected violations, essentially a penalty reserved for deliberate and unrepentant scofflaws. Fines for inadvertent violations start at $100.00.
