Verily, the life sciences wing of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., will not comply with a request from lawmakers to drop its mandatory Google account sign-in for its Chinese virus screening website. The Masters of the Universe also believe they can ignore HIPAA laws because they are “not acting as a covered entity or business associate.”
The website allows people to answer a series of questions to check if they should get tested for the Chinese coronavirus, but it requires that you sign in to a Google account in order to access it, meaning the company will have your data.
Five U.S. senators sent a letter to Verily last month urging them to drop the sign-in requirement, but Verily has refused to comply with the request.
“Given that Google Account provides best in class authentication and that quickly developing alternative methods of authentication runs the risk of being less secure for participants, currently Verily cannot make this a priority as we don’t have the mechanism at hand to provide a different, equally secure method for authentication in the Baseline COVID-19 Program,” wrote the company in its response.
As CNET reporter Richard Nieva noted on social media, Verily also seems to believe that its screening tool is not covered under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the 1996 law that protects Americans’ private medical data.
“With regard to the Baseline COVID-19 Program, Verily is not acting as a covered entity or business associate within the context of HIPAA,” writes Verily on its website, emphasizing that “Verily employs security controls that map to the HIPAA Security Rule.”
” Verily strives to go above and beyond the requirements of individual regulatory frameworks to appropriately safeguard user information and to help in this public health emergency,” the firm concluded.
Are you an insider at Google, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or any other tech company who wants to confidentially reveal wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari at his secure email address allumbokhari@protonmail.com.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.
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