BREAKING NEWS: on April 17, the House voted to concur with the Senate version of My Health My Data! Thanks everybody who helped!!!!
We need your help to get the Washington state legislature to pass the strongest possible version of My Health My Data and protect the privacy and safety of people seeking reproductive and gender-affirming health care. Later this week the House will vote on whether to "concur" and accept the Senate's stronger version of the bill. If they do, My Health My Data passes! If the House doesn’t concur, then big tech companies will have a chance to weaken it or keep it from passing – leaving people at risk so they can keep exploiting our data.
Add your voice to our grassroots letter to the state legislature to ensure these protections are as strong as possible or use this CryptPad Form if you want a more privacy-friendly way of providing feedback and signing on. If you'd like to add your organization to the list, see the last question.
Once you've signed on to the letter, visit PassMyHealthMyData.net to see other ways you can help. And please share the link with your friends, family, and acquaintances and ask them to sign on as well! We'll send the letter with all the signatures to state legislators to let them know how broad the support for this bill is, and post it on PassMyHealthMyData.net.
Dear members of the Washington State House of Representatives,
My Health My Data (ESHB 1155) provides critical protections for consumer health data from websites, apps, and wearables like Fitbits – data which is not currently covered by HIPAA. These protections are all the more important since Roe has been overturned and states are criminalizing people who seek and provide reproductive and gender-affirming health care (and anybody who helps them).
The version of the bill the Senate passed on April 5 contains important improvements over the version the House passed last month. Please vote to concur with the Senate version of the bill.
If the bill goes to cross-chamber negotiations, do not accept any amendments that weaken the bill. Instead, keep the bill's protections strong, and ensure that enforcement begins as early as possible. Recent court rulings on access to mifepristone, as well as Idaho’s legislation criminalizing abortion and gender-affirming care, highlight the importance of protecting out-of-state visitors as well as Washingtonians as quickly as possible so we can all safely obtain reproductive, sexual, and gender-affirming care here.
Organizations supporting My Health My Data include Washington State Nurses Association, Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, WA People’s Privacy, Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN), Washington Education Association, Washington Build Back Black Alliance, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, UFCW 3000, Tacoma Urban League, SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, Pro-choice Washington, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, Northwest Progressive Institute, Northwest Health Law Advocates, Legal Voice, League of Women Voters WA, La Resistencia, Japanese American Citizens League (Seattle Chapter), Gender Justice League, Cedar River Clinics, Bleeding Disorder Foundation of Washington, Asian Counseling and Referral Service, ACLU of Washington, and AAUW.
We the undersigned join them asking you to stop the exploitation of Washingtonians' most personal and sensitive data, and protect those seeking abortion and gender-affirming care in our state, by passing a strong My Health My Data bill.
We urgently need these protections NOW.
Signed,
Note: Affiliations are for informational purposes only and do not constitute organizational endorsement.
