Emerging artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies being applied in consumer health and wellness products and services are often not covered by HIPAA, but instead fall under a variety of tough new state privacy laws that are being enacted, said regulatory attorney Lily Li of Metaverse Law.
Many companies offering consumer health related technologies “traditionally have operated in a very unregulated space,” she said. But that’s changing.
“There are a lot of new state privacy laws, whether it’s the California Consumer Privacy Act, the Washington, My Health, My Data Act, or Texas’s recent Data Privacy and Security Act, which govern the collection and sharing of sensitive personal data, including healthcare data,” she said in an interview with Information Security Media Group.
“So you’re seeing a lot of tech companies that are using AI in this previously unregulated space that will be suddenly faced with a lot of privacy and security regulations that they might not be familiar with,” she said.
“There’s a lot of different laws that are being passed at the state level, and it really is a patchwork depending on where your activities are and where the consumers are located,” she said. “But these entities should be aware that under these state privacy laws, geolocation data combined with healthcare data or geolocation data combined with a lot of other types of identifiers is also considered very sensitive.”
In the interview (see audio link below photo), Li also discussed:
- Uses of AI in customer service, administrative and clinical areas of healthcare;
- Critical privacy and security considerations for AI and machine learning development and use in healthcare;
- Privacy issues involving de-identified data in the use of AI and machine learning in healthcare.
Li, a cybersecurity and AI attorney, founded law firm Metaverse Law in 2018. She advises clients on a broad range of artificial intelligence, privacy and data protection matters, including the California Consumer Privacy Act, the General Data Protection Regulation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Framework.