Common use of Breach Response Clause in Contracts

Breach Response. (a) In general. In the event of a breach of PII/PHI held by the Business Associate, the Business Associate shall follow the breach response requirements set forth in this Part V, which is designed to satisfy both the Privacy Act and HIPAA as applicable. If a breach involves PII without PHI, then the Business Associate shall comply with DoD Privacy Act Issuance breach response requirements only; if a breach involves PHI (a subset of PII), then the Business Associate shall comply with both Privacy Act and HIPAA breach response requirements. A breach involving PHI may or may not constitute an HHS Breach. If a breach is not an HHS Breach, then the Business Associate has no HIPAA breach response obligations. In such cases, the Business Associate must still comply with breach response requirements under the DoD Privacy Act Issuances. If the DHA Privacy Office determines that a breach is an HHS Breach, then the Business Associate shall comply with both the HIPAA Breach Rule and DoD Privacy Act Issuances, as directed by the DHA Privacy Office, regardless of whether the breach occurs at DHA or at one of the Service components. If the DHA Privacy Office determines that the breach does not constitute an HHS Breach, then the Business Associate shall comply with DoD Privacy Act Issuances, as directed by the applicable Service-Level Privacy Office. [The Service-Level Privacy Office may wish to add more specific provisions here and below addressing what is required when the incident is not an HHS Breach. The only DHA Privacy Office role in that situation is to track the Service-level breach response.] The following provisions of Part V set forth the Business Associate’s Privacy Act and HIPAA breach response requirements for all breaches, including but not limited to HHS breaches. This Part V is designed to satisfy the DoD Privacy Act Issuances and the HIPAA Breach Rule as implemented by the DoD HIPAA Issuances. In general, for breach response, the Business Associate shall report the breach to the Covered Entity, assess the breach incident, notify affected individuals, and take mitigation actions as applicable. Because DoD defines “breach” to include possible (suspected) as well as actual (confirmed) breaches, the Business Associate shall implement these breach response requirements immediately upon the Business Associate’s discovery of a possible breach.