The Washington My Health My Data (MHMD) law is in effect, and there’s a similar law in Nevada. Both laws aim to protect state residents’ personal health data by regulating its collection, sharing, selling and other processing.

These laws broadly define consumer health data (CHD) as “personal information that is linked or reasonably linkable to a consumer and that identifies the consumer's past, present, or future physical or mental health status,” including inferences drawn from non-health data that could be used to identify or associate a consumer with CHD.

Under these laws, explicit opt-in consent, similar to EU consent standards, is required from consumers before collecting, using, or sharing CHD. If CHD is being used for targeted advertising, a valid written authorization signed by the consumer is also required in addition to explicit opt-in consent.

You can learn more about these laws and additional requirements by visiting Washington’s law here, and Nevada’s law here.

To help reduce your risk of non-compliance with these laws, Mediavine created a two-part solution:

For readers in Washington and Nevada, Mediavine created a technical solution that hides information about the reader so they cannot be associated with pages on your website containing certain health-related topics or keywords. Ads are not restricted or stopped. Without a reader’s information in the bid request, it is less likely an advertiser could target that reader based on their health data. If a reader cannot be targeted based on their health data, the heightened requirements of explicit consent and valid authorization may not apply.

Mediavine sent notices to our partners, instructing them not to use any data from your website to identify or guess a reader’s health condition to show health-related ads. We are also including similar language in our new contracts with partners.

Mediavine will continue to monitor these laws and any similar ones being enacted, and will update these solutions as needed.

If you’re still worried about how these laws might affect your website, please talk with your lawyer.