
Keypoint: The New York legislature passes broad and restrictive health data privacy legislation with implications for businesses both within and outside New York.
Last week, the New York legislature passed the New York Health Information Privacy Act (S 929) (the “Act”). If signed into law, the Act will add New York to the list of states that have enacted consumer health data-specific privacy legislation in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Although the Act is not a clone of Washington’s My Health My Data Act (“MHMD”), it follows many of the same themes: regulating health data beyond the state’s borders, utilizing a broad definition of health data, and imposing additional obligations and narrower exemptions than those seen in generally applicable consumer privacy legislation.
Below, we provide a summary of the Act and identify some of the unique challenges it poses for affected companies.