(MIT Technology Review) – The goal of an autopsy is to discover the cause of a person’s death. Autopsy reports, especially those resulting from detailed investigations, often reveal health conditions—conditions that might have been kept private while the person was alive. There are multiple federal and state laws designed to protect individuals’ health information. For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects “individually identifiable health information” up to 50 years after a person’s death. But some things change when a person dies. (Read More)