Kate Middleton Could ‘Absolutely’ File a Civil Lawsuit Over Medical Records Breach, Expert Says

Transcript

00:00 I don't know if anybody could escape the royal news that has been upon us this past week,

00:04 but now it's entering into legal territory. So love to get your expertise on this one.

00:09 So the London Clinic recently launched an investigation into its staffers after members

00:14 of the hospital reportedly tried to access Kate's private records following her January

00:19 abdominal procedure. So the Daily Mail reported this and the investigation came to light after

00:26 one staff member attempted to access Kate's notes on file without permission.

00:31 This is of course according to the outlet and this is the hospital staff said it is to be

00:37 utterly shocked and distraught over the allegations and were very hurt that a trusted colleague could

00:44 have allegedly been responsible for such a breach of trust and ethics. Now Kensington Palace also

00:49 issued a statement noting that the princess is aware of the breach and that this is a matter

00:54 for the London Clinic. The London Clinic probably in a little bit of trouble right now asked about

01:01 the breach about the breach report received by the Information Commissioner's office.

01:06 A spokesperson for London's police said we are not aware of any referral to the Metropolitan

01:11 Police at this time. So what exactly does an investigation like this kind of entail?

01:18 What are they looking for and how did this kind of come to light you think?

01:22 Well Christina there's a few components here and obviously here in the United States we have HIPAA

01:26 that prevents someone who's not authorized from accessing your medical records and that's why

01:32 whenever you go to a doctor even to communicate with another medical provider you'll have to sign

01:36 an authorization or a HIPAA release. Now obviously the UK doesn't have HIPAA but they have their own

01:43 data protection act that protects this type of medical information and speaking of data it's

01:49 pretty clear right now whenever you access a file or a site who's doing so. So this is something that

01:55 is easy to catch and it's just really a question of did the perpetrator just try to access the

02:02 data or was he or she able to actually see it in which case that would be a very serious violation.

02:09 And what would that entail? Does that involve jail time for them? Because obviously this is pretty

02:18 um important information a lot of people don't know exactly what she went into the hospital for

02:22 they said abdominal surgery but it's been clouded in mystery since then so if this information does

02:28 come forward because that's Kensington Palace then get involved does the Metropolitan Police then get

02:33 involved as well? I think so Christina there's really three potential layers the first would be

02:38 an administrative obviously a doctor or a nurse or a medical professional they would be licensed

02:45 and there'd be a body that regulates them so there could be some administrative penalty

02:50 they could be suspended or even lose their license entirely and of course to the extent that there's

02:56 been a criminal violation and obviously we've talked about the different phone hacking and

03:01 other scandals involving the royals that could be a criminal investigation and prosecution and

03:08 of course you know Kate can always file a civil lawsuit for invasion of privacy that's also

03:13 something that we've covered here on the show with respect to the royals if she wants to go

03:17 after the perpetrator to say that her privacy rights were violated she can absolutely do so.