Officials let ICE access health data to locate migrants, alarming experts who warn of civil rights and health risks
Medicaid officials have reportedly made an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to allow agents to examine a database of Americans’ personal information – including home addresses, social security numbers and ethnicities.
The data sharing agreement will allow Ice to find “the location of aliens”, according to an agreement obtained by the Associated Press. Medicaid is the nation’s single largest health insurer, providing coverage for 79 million low-income, disabled and elderly people.
“This is about the weaponization of data, full stop,” said Pramila Jayapal, a Democratic US representative from Washington state, who has worked extensively on US healthcare, in a statement on social media.
I’m not in health care so I’m not really familiar with HIPAA but I thought it just protected against health care companies and not the government? Although I must say, it never occurred to me that they would do something like this
My understanding has always been that doctors shouldn’t share peoples private health information with law enforcement either…
Like if the cops suspect you of a crime or planning a crime, they can’t just go to your therapist and ask them what you talk about in your sessions…
I have no expertise but that has always been something I thought was protected. Maybe it’s changed if it’s demographic and personal experience rather than medical…? I have no idea
Stop pretending like MAGA is playing by the rules everyone. Ice agents are terrorists and shouldn’t be given the respect of your cognition for a civil society that protects itself from tyrants. Your health information is your own fucking business and a trespass on that should be treated with the horror and aggression it deserves.
My reservation is due to not having the legal expertise to substantiate that it is legally in the wrong, when I believe it to be morally in the wrong.
I’m literally on medicaid, I’m not happy that ICE was handed my private information. Fortunately for me, I’m white.
What a time to be alive 😶
It is, in fact, a blatant violation of HIPAA