On September 25, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the California Genetic Information Privacy Act (“GIPA”), about which we reported here.  Governor Newsom expressed his support for protecting the privacy of individuals’ genetic data, but indicated that he was concerned about the impact of this law on “laboratories’ mandatory requirement to report COVID-19 test outcomes to local public health departments, who report that information to the California Department of Public Health.”  Governor Newsom also directed “the California Health and Human Services Agency and the Department of Public Health to work with the Legislature on a solution that achieves the privacy aims of the bill while preventing inadvertent impacts on COVID-19 testing efforts.”  Thus, it appears that GIPA is not entirely dead and may see a resurrection soon with some modifications to address COVID-19 reporting.

Editor: Arsen Kourinian