Barnes said the IRS search warrant only “authorized the seizure of financial records related principally to a former employee of the company; it did not authorize any seizure of any health care or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter.”

Despite this stricture, Barnes charged the agents “seized personal mobile phones, including all the data and information on those phones, without any employing the proper and procedurally correct screening methods to protect private and privileged information, all of which was completely unapproved by the search warrant."

This Notice discusses the effect of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Regulations, 45 C.F.R. parts 160 and 164, when the Service requests protected health information from a taxpayer or third party. Under these regulations, the Service will generally have additional burdens when requesting protected health information from a “covered entity” or a covered entity’s business associate. There are three exceptions that allow the Service to obtain protected health information while enforcing the Internal Revenue Code: the consent of the taxpayer, the law enforcement exception, and the administrative and judicial proceedings exception. This Notice discusses the standards for applying these exceptions.