Indiana Website Tracking, Privacy & Wiretap Litigation

Published by Crandall Consulting · Informational litigation intelligence · Last intelligence update: October 12, 2026

Lawsuits, demand letters, tracked matters, and reported claims are counted separately and are not interchangeable. Last intelligence update: October 12, 2026.

Current Landscape

The supplied Indiana dataset assigns a Lower risk level and lists one lawsuit, zero demand letters, and zero additional tracked matters. These figures describe the supplied dataset, not the full statewide litigation landscape.

In Brian Elkins and Annie Elkins v. Bartholomew County Public Hospital d/b/a Columbus Regional Health, the plaintiffs allege that the hospital disclosed private information to third-party technologies without patient consent. The hospital denies the claims and maintains that it did nothing wrong. The supplied summary identifies no holding, standing determination, procedural ruling, or current case status.

The dataset lists the Indiana Wiretap Act (Ind. Code § 35-31.5-2-176) and a range of technologies. It does not establish that the listed statute or every listed technology is implicated in the lawsuit. The case summary specifically supports only the allegations concerning disclosure of private information to third-party technologies.

Current Litigation Activity

Current litigation component: 6/100.

Important New Filings

• Brian Elkins and Annie Elkins v. Bartholomew County Public Hospital d/b/a Columbus Regional Health · April 22, 2026

Current Filing & Litigation Trends

The supplied counts show one lawsuit and no demand letters or additional tracked matters. Without filing dates, historical counts, or case-status information, they do not support a conclusion about increasing or decreasing filings, whether the lawsuit remains active, or a broader statewide or industry trend.

Precedent Landscape: What Courts Have Decided

Precedent component: 50/100. Litigation activity (volume) and precedential risk (authority of decisions) are measured separately — a high number of filings does not by itself indicate strong plaintiff-favorable binding precedent.

No decided precedent with a clear substantive direction is currently tracked.

A settlement is not a binding precedent, and a procedural dismissal (for example, for lack of standing) is not a holding that the underlying technology is lawful. Where courts disagree, that disagreement is reflected rather than resolved.

Current Laws & Relevant Statutes

• Indiana Wiretap Act — Ind. Code § 35-31.5-2-176

Regulatory Enforcement

Regulatory enforcement component: 0/100. Regulatory enforcement (agency investigations, sweeps, settlements, guidance, rulemaking) is tracked separately from private litigation and is never counted as a lawsuit.

No specific enforcement actions are itemized for this jurisdiction.

Agency Guidance

Regulatory trend: insufficient data.

Global Privacy Control / Opt-Out Signals

Limited data

GPC / universal opt-out exposure component: limited data — this component is excluded from the overall risk guideline for this jurisdiction until researched (remaining components are reweighted accordingly).

GPC / universal opt-out privacy rights are a different legal theory from wiretap / interception litigation, though both affect third-party website data flows.

Learn more about Global Privacy Control → · How GPC posture is weighted in the risk guideline →

Changes Coming in the Next 24 Months

Forward-looking (24-month) component: 0/100. Enacted changes with future effective dates may affect a jurisdiction's forward-looking risk, but are not presented as currently enforceable.

Coming Into Effect (Enacted)

No enacted future-effective laws identified in our latest research cycle.

Legislation to Watch (Pending)

No pending website-privacy legislation identified for this jurisdiction in our latest research cycle.

Important Cases & Tracked Matters

Technologies Appearing in Claims

• Third-party technologies associated with patient portal information disclosure
• Patient portal
• Unspecified third-party technologies
• embedded tracking pixels
• Website tracking tools
• Built-in search bar
• Website video viewing
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Algorithmic feeds
• Age assurance
• Push notifications
• Beauty filters
• Visible like counts
• website-tracking pixel
• online patient portal
• Website search bar
• Online video
• automated_decisionmaking
• artificial_intelligence
• algorithmic_bias
• biometrics
• telehealth
• location_data
• data_brokers

Historical Risk Guideline

What Businesses Should Review

As general review considerations rather than findings about the named hospital, organizations may inventory third-party integrations on websites and patient portals, map the information transmitted, and compare actual configurations with privacy notices, consent practices, vendor contracts, and internal approvals. Where tags, pixels, analytics scripts, or embedded content are used, a technical review may examine data transmitted through URLs, form fields, referrers, and event triggers. Any case-specific assessment should verify the pleadings, asserted statutory basis, current procedural status, and any rulings before describing judicial conclusions.

Data Quality

11 source(s), 4 primary; evidence is fresh.

Methodology & Limitations

Statistics on this page are generated by the Crandall Consulting litigation intelligence engine. Publicly available sources (court and government materials, recognized legal press, professional analysis, and industry reports) are discovered through automated web research, classified into a tiered source hierarchy, and reduced to structured facts with full source provenance. Risk guidelines and evidence-confidence scores are computed by a deterministic formula from those stored facts — never by an AI model directly (AI explains findings; it never assigns a score). Counts labeled "tracked" reflect matters identified in our source set and are not official court statistics.

The overall risk guideline is composed of six deterministically weighted components: statutory structure (25%), current litigation activity (25%), prior precedent (18%), GPC / universal opt-out posture (15%), regulatory enforcement (9%), and the forward-looking 24-month horizon (8%). When a state's GPC status is limited data, that component is excluded and the remaining weights are renormalized — limited data never reads as lower exposure. Current litigation activity is measured over recent windows (velocity), not lifetime volume, so a jurisdiction with high historical activity but declining current filings reflects that decline. Litigation activity (volume) and precedential risk (authority of decisions) are measured separately. Full details are on the methodology page.

Sources

• Columbus Regional Health Pixel Settlement Ends Class Action Over Alleged Disclosure of Patient Data — ClassAction.org · Tier D (Industry data)
• Stowe et al. v. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc., d/b/a Bicycling — Opinion and Order Denying Motion to Compel Arbitration — U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware · Tier A (Primary authority)
• Utah Secures $12.2 Billion Settlement With Meta Over Child Safety Practices — Governor Spencer J. Cox · Tier A (Primary authority)
• Brian Elkins and Annie Elkins v. Bartholomew County Public Hospital d/b/a Columbus Regional Health — Settlement FAQ — Columbus Regional Pixel Settlement Administrator · Tier E (General web)
• Brian Elkins and Annie Elkins v. Bartholomew County Public Hospital d/b/a Columbus Regional Health — Official Settlement Website — Simpluris, Settlement Administrator · Tier E (General web)
• Elkins v. Southeastern Indiana Health Management Inc. d/b/a Columbus Regional Health — Order on Motion to Remand — U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, via GovInfo · Tier A (Primary authority)
• Brian Elkins and Annie Elkins v. Bartholomew County Public Hospital d/b/a Columbus Regional Health — Settlement FAQ — Columbus Regional Health Settlement Administrator · Tier E (General web)
• Brian Elkins and Annie Elkins v. Bartholomew County Public Hospital d/b/a Columbus Regional Health - Home — Columbus Regional Health Settlement Administrator · Tier E (General web)
• Stowe et al. v. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. — Document 23, Opinion Denying Motion to Compel Arbitration — U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, via Justia · Tier A (Primary authority)
• U.S. Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Review and Outlook – 2025 — Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP · Tier E (General web)
• The US State Privacy Law Tracker for 2026: Twenty Laws, One Compliance Baseline — Consenteo · Tier C (Professional analysis)

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