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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ( HIPAA) to provide the first comprehensive Federal protection for the privacy of personal health information. Congress recognized that standardizing the electronic means of paying and collecting claims data increased the potential for abuse of people’s medical information. So a key part of the act also increased and standardized confidentiality and security of health data. HIPAA privacy regulations require that access to patient information be limited to only those authorized, and that only the information necessary for a task be available to them. And finally that personal health information must be protected and kept confidential. Congress did not get around to finalizing the actual regulations on the tim