Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
Also called: HIPAA
Course: AP® Cybersecurity Shows up in: Unit 5: Securing Applications and Data
A United States law from 1996 that protects protected health information (PHI), such as test results and treatment records.
Appears in the course and exam description (CED): 5.2.A.45.2.A.5
Why it matters in Unit 5
A clinic that stores PHI must label it and follow HIPAA rules for storing, sending and handling it.
Example
Doctor visit notes on a clinic server are PHI covered by HIPAA.
Learn it properly, with a checkpoint 5.2 Protecting Applications and Data: Managerial Controls and Access ControlsGo deeper: the professional references
Security professionals worldwide use these: the NIST glossary (the U.S. government's official security dictionary), MITRE ATT&CK (real attacker techniques), MITRE CWE (software weaknesses) and the internet's own standards (RFCs). They go beyond the AP® course, so use the definition above for the exam.