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Even if you avoid CVS in favor of your local independent pharmacy, your prescription history could end up in CVS’s computers. One way CVS grows is buying the prescription files of pharmacies that are closing, so that CVS can pick up their business. One CVS spokesman estimates that the company does 200 such file buys a year. Several years ago, a person with AIDS in New York City found his prescription records had been sold to CVS without his consent or even notice and sued in New York state court. He claimed that as part of the deal to buy the records, CVS had induced the independent drug store not to inform customers of the transfer. The patient also claimed that moving his records from the independent store into CVS’s database made them accessible to thousands of CVS employees nationwide. The court ruled in 2003 that selling prescription information without patients’ consent violated the selling pharmacy’s duty to protect patient confidentiality. CVS, however, continues to buy patients’ prescription files from other pharmacies.