Uber rape victim sues Uber, says execs got her medical records

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/uber-rape-victim-sues-uber-says-execs-got-her-medical-records/

by fabian2k • 9 years ago

126 81 9 years ago

djsumdog• 9 years ago

I guess India doesn't have HIPPA style regulations (or if they do, they're just unenforced). I haven't been there in decades, but I remember having to take x-rays and blood test results between doctors. There was no real centralized health system at the time.

So the crime, sharing personal health records, occurred in India. But it was an American victim, American company and American employees allegedly getting and sharing her health information.

I'm interested in how this plays out legally.

metalliqaz• 9 years ago

I think it must be true that HIPAA doesn't apply to the Indian records, because otherwise I'm sure there would be a HIPAA complaint. Usually that would start against the professionals in the medical field that mishandled the records. Instead, this suit is about invasion of privacy and defamation. Honestly I'm surprised that she can go after them for defamation after already accepting a settlement from them. Still, these guys are obviously first-class assholes and at this point I'm not surprised anymore. Uber seems destined for the textbooks, under "how to kill a unicorn."

gordon_freeman• 9 years ago

just settling a rape case does not give Uber execs the freedom to pass the private health records within the company and defame that woman so she is still entitled to file the defamation case. I'm surprised that you're surprised.

atonse2• 9 years ago

The existence of HIPAA has little to do with whether you have to take your records across doctors.

HIPAA requires that our medical data is secured when stored at a medical facility, but I still have to drive over with CDs and printed X rays if I have to go to different doctors and specialists. Doctor's referrals are still paper printouts, and you have to show up early to any doctor as a new patient, and fill out the same form about your medical history all over again. Things are still faxed, sometimes emailed.

This problem is still completely unsolved in the US. The closest thing is maybe if you're going across doctors in one hospital or hospital network, then your records are electronically "transferred"

ars• 9 years ago

The existence of HIPAA has little to do with whether you have to take your records across doctors.

Well, actually HIPAA stands for "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" - it's specifically about making health records portable.

The security provisions were it's more minor, yet, best know part.

FireBeyond• 9 years ago

EPIC (one of the, if not the biggest EMR providers in the US) had to be sued into not charging fees per export provider, per export, of medical records out of EPIC (on top of the 7+ digit licensing costs of EPIC itself).

lsiebert2• 9 years ago

There are electronic prescriptions as well.

JohnTHaller• 9 years ago

There's mostly no centralized system in the US here either. I had to get an MRI on a burned CDR from my old doctor's office and walk it over to my new doctor's office three weeks ago here in NYC. None of my doctors share records with each other except when they're in the same hospital's network. And even then it can be iffy.

__jal• 9 years ago

Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how HIPPA would have anything to do with this. It only applies to "covered entities", so had the initial disclosure happened in the US, the leaker most likely would have been implicated, but HIPPA would not apply to Uber people (unless, for some reason, Uber is a covered entity).

Defamation, sure.

cryptozeus• 9 years ago

Any style of regulation is non existent

WisNorCan• 9 years ago

The penalties associated with white collar crime are not effective deterrents. If you have billions of dollars and the worst that can happen is that you pay a couple million in fines, then you are effectively above the law. This was evident in the subprime mortgage crisis. Vast communities were destroyed with limited consequences for the perpetrators.

I would personally like to see white collar crime lead to incarceration more often as that seems like a stronger deterrent. Having said that, I am not deeply knowledgeable about the facts of this particular case.

redm3• 9 years ago

I see what you're saying, the consequences don't outway the benefit of breaking the law; Congress can solve that through tougher penalties. That said, I feel confident the answer is not putting MORE people in Prison, especially for civil cases. The US already incarcerates far too many people. It's out of control as it is. [1] [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...

[2] "Comparing some countries with similar percentages of immigrants, Germany has an incarceration rate of 76 per 100,000 population (as of 2014),[25] Italy is 85 per 100,000 (as of 2015),[26] and Saudi Arabia is 161 per 100,000 (as of 2013).[27] Comparing other countries with a zero tolerance policy for illegal drugs, the rate of Russia is 455 per 100,000 (as of 2015),[28] Kazakhstan is 275 per 100,000 (as of 2015),[29] Singapore is 220 per 100,000 (as of 2014),[30] and Sweden is 60 per 100,000 (as of 2014).[31]"

busterarm• 9 years ago

If we applied the same laws around not profiting off of violent crimes to white collar crime AND extended that to company stakeholders as well, investors would make executives knock off that sort of behavior real quick.

model_s• 9 years ago

Yeah, I'd agree that it's out of control. But fiscally dangerous might not be enough. Can help the problem by not jailing petty crime.

leggomylibro• 9 years ago

We could focus on putting DIFFERENT people in prison, though. We could prioritize crimes that treats human beings as chattel for personal gain, or by the number of people an action harmed.

SomeStupidPoint• 9 years ago

I'm confident that putting more white collar criminals in prison is a solution to both problems.

The percentage of white collar criminals would still be low (ie, won't change the incarceration numbers much), and it would connect more influential families to the problems with our prison system instead of having a classist divide on who it impacts.

I propose that we institute "murder" enhancements: any financial crime that causes more than $9mil in damages (the cost of a life [0]) must carry the same penalty as a murder (with the same level of intent, eg, planned versus unplanned); add multiplier for every additional $9mil in damages (ie, $9mil-17.9mil is 1x, $18-26.9mil is 2x, etc); leaders of organizations should be charged equivalently to leaders of other criminal enterprises -- if your organization committed $9bil in fraud, you should be charged as a leader of an organization which committed 1,000 murders.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States

WindyCityBrew• 9 years ago

I'll echo other replies and agree that we should put different people in prison, not more. I'd argue that white collar crime hurts more people than consensual and most violent crimes and it should be punished as such.

s73ver4• 9 years ago

I would be more than happy to exchange many of the non-violent offenders who ended up doing not much harm on an absolute scale with these white collar criminals who end up harming many, many more people.

99_00• 9 years ago

If convicted a person will have a criminal record which can destroy them professionally.

FridgeSeal• 9 years ago

Good. Maybe that will make them think twice about doing something illegal just because they can afford the fine. For too long to meant companies and people in business have avoided the consequence of their actions, it's time we pulled them back into line.

accountyaccount• 9 years ago

I think it should be based on a percentage of your income (with a set minimum, otherwise you're also just giving the poor a free pass), apparently Finland does this with speeding tickets.

azag0• 9 years ago

I have much doubt that criminal penalties would change anything. People would just put much more energy in avoiding them. I think that state a priori regulation is a more effective tool than state a posteriori punishment.

branchless3• 9 years ago

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-stre...

"You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term, and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street," says a former congressional aide. "That's all it would take. Just once."

s73ver4• 9 years ago

I don't see why we can't have both. But, for it to really work, you can't throw them in Country Club Resort prison. They have to go to Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison. They need to be locked up with some really bad people. Because, let's face it, most of these white collar criminals are really bad people.

vec2• 9 years ago

I'd accept a minimum statuatory fine of 100% of the profits from your criminal activities. White collar crime, when discovered, should always be a net loss for the plaintiff's balance sheet.

It's not perfect, but if you make ten billion dollars from fraud, I feel like first you should lose the whole ten billion dollars as a matter of course, after which we can start discussing what if any punishment is appropriate.

pizzetta• 9 years ago

What would you do about PHI leakers, computer operators at hospitals/clinics, who leak celebrity information. Sometimes it's not for profit and one can't just block access as access is necessary to process the patient, for example. These are often low paying jobs to boot.

redm3• 9 years ago

"It's not perfect, but if you make ten billion dollars from fraud,"

I don't see how this applies to this matter. From what I read in the article, Uber was being sued and investigating a crime that occurred through the application of their service. In other words, if they did something wrong, it wasn't in the pursuit of profit, it was in defense of another lawsuit or the ultimate private settlement thereof.

TTPrograms• 9 years ago

Really it should be something like 1.2*profits/(probability of discovery) so that the expected return on criminal activities is negative.

falcolas• 9 years ago

Change profits to revenue, and it's a better deterrent.

kilotaras• 9 years ago

100% of the profits from your criminal activities

No it should be higher than that.

      Expected ROI = profits - P*fine.

P is probability of getting caught and is strictly less than one. If fine is equal to profits ROI is positive and engaging in illegal activity is a rational, if immoral, thing to do.

pasbesoin• 9 years ago

Amongst other things, the "War on Terror" diverted an enormous fraction of law enforcement resources away from this.

As I said in another comment, today, from my perspective, the average American faces much greater terror from being screwed over by "too big to punish (let alone fail)" corporations, than they do from actual terrorists -- manufactured fear aside.

Fines mostly don't hurt corporate members, individually, and often represent a fraction of the profit they've gained by breaking laws and regulations.

Pierce the corporate veil. Lock them up.

Assign law enforcement resources to relevant crime that weakens our society -- not in overwhelming numbers to another "War on..." fearscape.

branchless3• 9 years ago

Agreed. Fines in banking have become the cost of doing business, where one can read "crime" for the word "business". Stick these guys in jail!

spacemanmatt4• 9 years ago

The white-collar criminal who wrote the laws made it so they can deduct fines from their taxes. So unless they're fined more than they make in a year, they never pay a penny of it.

rayiner2• 9 years ago

The problem is white collar crime is often extremely amorphous. White collar crime is largely things that are perfectly legal to do unless you do them in certain ways or have certain knowledge or intent while doing them.

A great example is the HSBC money laundering case. Go actually read the DOJ statement of facts in that case. As a preliminary matter, every large bank is used for money laundering. And bank executives all know, in the abstract, that their banks are used for money laundering. That's not illegal--it'd be impossible to have a bank that wasn't used for money laundering. The gist of the case was that HSBC failed to classify Mexico as a higher risk country and implement appropriate controls despite warnings from non-binding authorities about the risk of money laundering in Mexico. Who should go to prison for that?

spacemanmatt4• 9 years ago

The problem is white-collar criminals wrote the laws, not that it's hard to identify crime.

theptip2• 9 years ago

That is a great example. But HSBC is hardly as innocent as you're making out.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-se...

Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC's Mexican branches and "deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows."

The gist of the case is that HSBC were so brazenly negligent, that the only logical conclusion is that they were deliberately looking the other way in order to make more profit, and they paid $1.9B to make the problem go away. That's on $670 billion in wire transfers and $9.4 billion in cash transactions from its Mexico bank operations during the period under question [1].

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/10/news/companies/hsbc-money-la...

deepsun• 9 years ago

Problem with top execs incarceration is that it's not good for economy and country in general (sometimes, not always). It's more beneficial to fine them and let them go working/breaking law further.

Yes, that's not fair, but it's logical.

Having lived for some time in another country, I've seen counter-examples too: when execs were incarcerated for minor things and mere accusations, effectively destroying the companies they've built, so hundreds of employees had to look for another job. Everyone's seen that fairness doesn't play well with pragmatics, and it's better to let them go even if they are guilty.

cmurf• 9 years ago

It probably needs an innovation in articles of incorporation, something like the "benefit corporation" that would bind a certain criminal liability to the board and/or officers in a very explicitly way. Right now they don't see jail time except in pretty narrow cases, like say Enron, where it was violations of fiduciary duty. Enron, and its auditor, did basically get the corporate death penalty (they're gone). And the shareholders were destroyed.

tareqak2• 9 years ago

Previous submissions:

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14562331 (was flagged)

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14563285

3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14562862

Other sources:

1. The New York Times: Uber Is Sued by Woman Who Was Raped by One of Its Drivers in India from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/technology/uber-india-rap...

2. Bloomberg: Uber Accused of `Rape Denialism' by Victim of India Assault from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/uber-sued...

3. CNBC: Rape victim files new lawsuit against Uber from http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/15/rape-victim-files-new-lawsuit...

Edited to correct formatting.

outside1234• 9 years ago

I think the only shoe left to drop for Uber is the great convergence where Donald Trump takes over as CEO.

jquery• 9 years ago

Trump's Law - any sufficiently long discussion thread will involve a shoehorned reference to our current President no matter how tenuous or even non-existent.

michaelbuckbee• 9 years ago

There's nothing in the article - but had Uber said anything as to why they wanted the records? Or why on earth the CEO of the company needed to see them? Deeply repugnant.

kevindqc• 9 years ago

The complaint goes on to allege that Alexander shared the records with Kalanick and Emil Michael, an Uber executive who was fired earlier this week. According to the complaint, the men "discussed the records among themselves and with other staff at Uber, speculating that Plaintiff had made up the brutal rape in collusion with a rival of Uber in India to undermine Uber's business."

vmchale• 9 years ago

I doubt they would admit anything of that nature. And yeah, I don't understand why the CEO of the company would think this would help their PR. Even if it was a secret.

fav_collector• 9 years ago

IIRC, Uber was being sued by the Indian government over the case. Information is power

lsiebert2• 9 years ago

If I had to guess, they probably had it as part of the legal process for the first lawsuit, submitted as an affidavit or evidence to the court or something.

Repugnant indeed.

cosinetau2• 9 years ago

This is getting old, folks. https://help.uber.com/h/24010fe7-7a67-4ee5-9938-c734000b144a

kafkaesq• 9 years ago

This is getting old, folks.

Not to the victim it ain't.

cosinetau2• 9 years ago

I never meant to imply that was the case. As a person that hasn't been harmed by this company, I see this problem as having gotten out of hand and in need of intervention. As someone who has been harmed by other people, I find it troubling that some folks still continue to utilize a product that is actively causing harm to others, and violating their rights.

The fact is that given the heap of problems seemingly continuously coming out of Uber, the company doesn't seem to be changing, and these problems aren't slowing down.

Uber needs to change practice, and we need to communicate to the market that this behavior isn't acceptable via our wallets; they don't really seem to understand any other message. If it means that this company ultimately folds under the weight of these problems, so be it. The message needs to be clear to others: this is NOT acceptable.

MichaelBurge• 9 years ago

It seems like the lawsuit should be thrown out for two reasons:

* They already settled the lawsuit. At the very least, Doe should forfeit the money she already received before beginning this lawsuit regarding substantially the same matter. Otherwise, what's the point of settling if you can't forget about it?

* The onus for keeping medical records private is usually on the medical provider, not on the people interested in obtaining them.

s73ver4• 9 years ago

"They already settled the lawsuit."

This is a separate lawsuit. This is about them illegally obtaining her medical records.

"At the very least, Doe should forfeit the money she already received before beginning this lawsuit regarding substantially the same matter. "

No. This is a separate action.

"Otherwise, what's the point of settling if you can't forget about the matter?"

Settling does not give you carte blanche to keep being shitty.

"The onus for keeping medical records private is usually on the medical provider, not on the people interested in obtaining them."

How does this excuse Uber's behavior in the slightest?

hemantv• 9 years ago

Do you have no decency left?

tareqak2• 9 years ago

In case someone is interested in how this story did on the front page: http://hnrankings.info/14564112/ .

Uber rape victim sues Uber, says execs got her medical records

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