Whalen v. Roe

New York required prescriptions for certain higher-risk but medically legitimate drugs to be filed on forms recording the patient's name and address, with copies retained by the state Department of Health in a private computer system for five years before destruction. Patients receiving such prescriptions (plaintiffs) sued Health Commissioner Whalen (defendant), claiming the recordkeeping violated their constitutional right to privacy; the district court agreed and held the statute unconstitutional, and Whalen appealed.

Whether a state may constitutionally maintain a centralized computer record of the names and addresses of patients who receive prescriptions for drugs with both lawful and unlawful markets.