Joint letter calling on CVS and Walgreens to protect patient privacy and medical records

To CVS and Walgreens,

We are a group of civil society organizations writing to urge you to protect patients’ privacy and stop the practice of sharing personal, medical information without a warrant, legal consultation, or notifying the concerned patient.

This is especially important in light of the news that  your pharmacies will make the abortion pill mifepristone available. We applaud this move to ensure people have safe and reliable access to abortions. This will make it easier and quicker for many individuals to get the care they need. However, by providing access to this medication, CVS and Walgreens will also have sensitive data on those seeking abortions. This creates a new target for law enforcement and poses a risk for your patients. 

According to reports from December 2023, your pharmacies have consistently put consumers’ health privacy at risk by sharing patients’ medical data with law enforcement agencies without a warrant and without the patient’s knowledge or consent. Patients have a right to privacy of their medical data and a right to know who is accessing their health information. As healthcare professionals, you need no reminding about the sensitive nature of medical records. They contain very personal, revealing information about the health and lives of your patients—their medical conditions, allergies, past procedures, family history, chronic issues, and more. This information should be confidential and protected. Granting law enforcement access to these records poses a risk to everyone whose records you hold, and more so to individuals who might obtain abortion medication from you. 

To properly ensure the safety of those who might access mifepristone, or any other medication, through your pharmacy, we urge you to take necessary action to ensure they feel safe and protected. This should include:

(i) insisting on a warrant from law enforcement agencies demanding patient data,

(ii) pressing law enforcement agencies to go to court to enforce any demand for information

(iii) seeking legal advice before handing over medical information, and 

(iv) notifying concerned patients about data requests. 

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We look forward to hearing back on what steps you are taking to ensure these steps are reflected in your policies and practices. 

Signed,

Access Now

Carolina Abortion Fund

Demand Progress

Digital Defense Fund 

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Fight for the Future

Kairos Fellowship

MediaJustice

Mozilla

National Abortion Federation

New America’s Open Technology Institute

Our Justice 

ProgressNow New Mexico

Reproaction

Reproductive Health Access Project

Restore The Fourth

RootsAction.org

Surveillance Technology Oversight Project

The Woodhull Freedom Foundation

UCSF Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health

Upturn

We Testify