# Whalen v. Roe > Supreme Court of the United States · February 22, 1977 · 429 U.S. 589 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426662 ## Case - **Full name:** WHALEN, COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH OF NEW YORK v. ROE Et Al. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** February 22, 1977 - **Citations:** 429 U.S. 589; 97 S. Ct. 869; 51 L. Ed. 2d 64; 1977 U.S. LEXIS 42 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan - **Judges:** Stevens, Brennan, Stewart - **Cited by:** 1,536 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Questioned by Warner v. Township of South Harrison, 885 F. Supp. 2d 725 (2012). - Negative treatments: 1 - Distinguished by: 2 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426662 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - recognizing that, despite constitutionally protected interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters, “disclosures of private medical information to doctors, to hospital personnel, to insurance companies, and to public health agencies are often an essential part of modern … - finding no invasion of privacy right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment despite the fact that "some individuals' concern for their own privacy may lead them to avoid or to postpone needed medical attention" because of fear that public disclosure of this information "may ref… - explaining that narrowly disseminated medical information requested by a public health official “with a legitimate interest in the information” would not be “generally regarded as an invasion of privacy,” but that contrary circumstances could “implicate constitutionally protec… - holding that the Supreme Court explicitly recognized the constitutional right to privacy in Whalen v. Roe - stating that the ratio decidendi of Griswold supporting constitutional protection relating to marriage, privacy in the home, and the right to use contraceptives, "does not recognize a general interest in freedom from disclosure of private information" ## Opinion text Mr. Justice Brennan, concurring. I write only to express my understanding of the opinion of the Court, which I join. The New York statute under attack requires doctors to disclose to the State information about prescriptions for certain drugs with a high potential for abuse, and provides for the storage of that information in a central computer file. The Court recognizes that an individual’s “interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters” is an aspect of the right of privacy, ante, at 598-600, and nn. 2A-25, but holds that in this case, any such interest has not been seriously enough invaded by the State to require a showing that its program was indispensable to the State’s effort to control drug abuse. The information disclosed by the physician under this program is made available only to a small number of public health officials with a legitimate interest in the information. As the record makes clear, New York has long required doctors to make this information available to its officials •on request, and that practice is not challenged here. Such limited reporting requirements in the medical field are familiar, ante, at 602 n. 29, and are not generally regarded as an invasion of privacy. Broad dissemination by state officials of such information, however, would clearly implicate constitutionally-protected privacy rights, and would presumably be justified only by compelling state interests. See, e. g., Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 155-156 (1973). What is more troubling about this scheme, however, is the central computer storage of the data thus collected. Obviously, as the State argues, collection and storage of data *607 by the State that is in itself legitimate is not rendered unconstitutional simply because new technology makes the State’s operations more efficient. However, as the example of the Fourth Amendment shows, the Constitution puts limita not only on the type of information the State may gather, but also on the means it may use to gather it. The central storage and easy accessibility of computerized data vastly increase the potential for abuse of that information, and I am not prepared to say that future developments will not demonstrate the necessity of some curb on such technology. In this case, as the Court’s opinion makes clear, the State’s carefully designed program includes numerous safeguards intended to forestall the danger of indiscriminate disclosure. Given this serious and, so far as the record shows, successful effort to prevent abuse and limit access to the personal information at issue, I cannot say that the statute’s provisions for computer storage, on their face, amount to a deprivation of constitutionally protected privacy interests, any more than the more traditional reporting provisions. In the absence of such a deprivation, the State was not required to prove that the challenged statute is absolutely necessary to its attempt to control drug abuse. Of course, a statute that did effect such a deprivation would only be consistent with the Constitution if it were necessary to promote a compelling state interest. Roe v. Wade, supra; Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 464 (1972) (White, J., concurring in result). --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426662. Public record. Not legal advice.