It’s Your Data
What to know: Open AI has launched Health in ChatGPT, which connects users’ health data to the AI assistant so that users can have “personalized health conversations” with the AI.
The TPPF take: The federal healthcare data privacy act, HIPAA, doesn’t apply to apps and AI.
“That failure has a name, though most people have never heard of it: the HIPAA handoff,” says TPPF’s Caroline Welton. “HIPAA, the federal health-privacy law most Americans vaguely know exists, protects your data inside the clinical system. Your doctor’s office, your insurance company, your hospital. But HIPAA was written in 1996, before smartphones, before apps and before the commercial health-data economy came to be.”
For more on healthcare data privacy, click here.
Read the Room
What to know: Just over half of teacher training programs in U.S. colleges and universities teach reading the right way—backed by scientific evidence and actual outcomes. What about the other half?
The TPPF take: Inadequate teacher training is a big problem for U.S. schools.
“Teacher training should revolve around effective instruction techniques, not adherence to political slogans,” says TPPF’s Matthew McCormick. “This is an overlooked aspect of the decline of the teacher pipeline. Anyone who is to the right of Mao or even just not very political is walking into a hostile environment in the current day school of education.”
For more on teacher education, click here.
Your Home is Your Castle
What to know: An Austin homeowner was ordered to pay a nearly $9,000 fine after trimming trees on his own property. He’s now suing the city, backed by TPPF attorneys.
The TPPF take: Not only is the city of Austin out of line with its overreaching tree ordinances; the fine levied in the case is absurd.
“In Texas, the maximum fine for first-degree murder is $10,000,” says TPPF’s Laura Beth Latimer. “Austin is trying to charge our client nearly that much for trimming his own trees. No wonder Austin’s cost of living is out of control.”
For more on tree ordinances, click here.