Did Schefter or ESPN violate HIPAA? The short answer is no -- "HIPAA laws apply to a very specific list of medical professionals," said Kelly McBride, a media ethics expert at the Poynter Institute. She was a former ombudsman for ESPN.
ESPN said the same thing in a statement later Wednesday night: "HIPAA does not apply to news organizations."
But if a health care worker leaked the medical information to Schefter, that person almost certainly violated the law. If identified, the person could lose his or her job and face jail time and fines.
The records "should not be released without his explicit consent," said Arthur Caplan, the director of the medical ethics division at NYU's Langone Medical Center.
Caplan concurred that HIPAA "only applies to health care personnel and payers," but said, "theft is a more serious matter."
http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/08/media/jason-pierre-paul-espn-adam-schefter-hipaa/index.html
maybe someone from ESPN snapped a picture of a computer screen or file without permission ??