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Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

theguardian.com

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Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#11

Post by Altimos »

blissofbeing wrote: post #7

What is the risk of exposing our health data? To me it is not so obvious, other than maybe embarrassment? Is it like how in our culture we don't like to talk about how much money we make? Why are all these things supposed to be secret in the first place?

It's not the same as the income situation. In that situation it's about whoever pays you not wanting you to know that you're being undervalued compared to your coworkers. With healthcare it's about not wanting your community to know things and have biases against you and treat you differently because of your medical history.

Imagine you used to have cancer and beat it, and independent of that fact are looking for a new job that offers health insurance.

If your condition every resurfaces, you're going to be a real expensive hire for your employer in terms of time off (for treatments and recovery) and your new health insurance provider.

You might be so expensive that they decide not to hire you, or decide not to cover you.

If you want to think of your own cases, think about medical conditions that have been stigmatized over the course of history and how people's actual lives are effected by them.

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#12

Post by blissofbeing »

triceratops wrote: post #10
blissofbeing wrote: post #7

What is the risk of exposing our health data? To me it is not so obvious, other than maybe embarrassment? Is it like how in our culture we don't like to talk about how much money we make? Why are all these things supposed to be secret in the first place?

Isn't embarrassment enough? Why do you close the door when you go to the bathroom? In addition, many diseases like STD/STIs or mental illness carry a stigma. Information like that, if inadequately protected, can have a social or even financial cost like losing your job.

Maybe if it was public these diseases wouldn't be so stigmatized. It might have a social impact now, but I see that as the issue.

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#13

Post by caseysoftware »

blissofbeing wrote: post #7

What is the risk of exposing our health data? To me it is not so obvious, other than maybe embarrassment? Is it like how in our culture we don't like to talk about how much money we make? Why are all these things supposed to be secret in the first place?

> Why are all these things supposed to be secret in the first place?

Because it's detailed, personal, intimate information about you and your immediate family.

Even if there may be some upsides from releasing portions of it, it must be up to you to control and opt into.

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#14

Post by markstos »

uoaei wrote: post #9

My housemate is not careful with their digital privacy so their devices are all unambiguously theirs and the profile assembled by advertisers is likely cohesive across platforms. Two days ago they said they've been getting a lot more ads about prescription vaginal creams lately. This wasn't happening a week ago. There is reason to expect that someone with access to their medical history would segment them as a likely…

As a man, I had ads about custom fit bras follow me around the internet for awhile. This had nothing to do with my medical records. I read an article about a related company.

Sorry, getting ads about medical products is not evidence that the advertising platform has your medical records.

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#15

Post by reaperducer »

blissofbeing wrote: post #7

What is the risk of exposing our health data? To me it is not so obvious, other than maybe embarrassment? Is it like how in our culture we don't like to talk about how much money we make? Why are all these things supposed to be secret in the first place?

Because your medical information can be used against you.

Want a new job? Nope! We don't want someone with your condition on our team.

Want to buy a house? Nope! An AI bot says may not live long enough to pay the loan.

Want to get some ice cream? Can't haz. When you swipe your electronic payment method the database says you're at a risk for diabetes.

There are thousands of other scenarios.

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#16

Post by ocdtrekkie »

DIVx0 wrote: post #6

I work for a large US based corp that focuses on technology and data services for the healthcare field. We have massive amounts of PHI for the majority of people who have visited a provider within the country. We apply all sorts of stuff to this data, ML, AI or whatever other buzzy tech you can think of. Most of this work happens within our own data centers but there is significant work done within public clouds. We…

I think the highlight point, that is new information (AFAIK) in this article is that 150 Google employees are working on this project. So this isn't "Ascension is hosting their data in the cloud", it's "Google is working with health data".

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#17

Post by peterwwillis »

> Two simple questions kept hounding me: did patients know about the transfer of their data to the tech giant? Should they be informed and given a chance to opt in or out?

That's literally what HIPAA was created to address. The user doesn't have to opt-in to every single solitary business that touches their data, because there is a chain of business contracts that explicitly dictate what they can do, that originates with the care provider.

This is like "blowing the whistle" because your dentist sent your dental impression to a company to create a crown for you. You didn't "opt-in" to that dental company getting your impressions, because your dentist had a contract with them to cover what they would do with it in the first place.

Jesus christ.

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#18

Post by temac »

DIVx0 wrote: post #6

I work for a large US based corp that focuses on technology and data services for the healthcare field. We have massive amounts of PHI for the majority of people who have visited a provider within the country. We apply all sorts of stuff to this data, ML, AI or whatever other buzzy tech you can think of. Most of this work happens within our own data centers but there is significant work done within public clouds. We…

It is not just because "everybody" is doing crazy shit, that it is OK to do it.

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#19

Post by cortesoft »

blissofbeing wrote: post #12
triceratops wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't embarrassment enough? Why do you close the door when you go to the bathroom? In addition, many diseases like STD/STIs or mental illness carry a stigma. Information like that, if inadequately protected, can have a social or even financial cost like losing your job.

Maybe if it was public these diseases wouldn't be so stigmatized. It might have a social impact now, but I see that as the issue.

I don't think it should be up to someone else what I am allowed to be embarrassed about, or what I want to keep private.

I don't think changing society to not be embarrassed about things being made public is a good solution to privacy concerns.

Also, we might have a million, non-embarrassment reasons to want to keep things private. I might not want people to know about my cancer because I want to be able to live my life without having to answer questions about it, or have people treat me as delicate. I might not want people to know I am pregnant because I don't want to have to tell them when I have a miscarriage.

Most importantly, I want to be able to have whatever arbitrary reasons I want to keep things private.

Re: Google whistleblower: the medical data of millions of Americans is at risk

#20

Post by earthboundkid »

markstos wrote: post #14
uoaei wrote: post #9

My housemate is not careful with their digital privacy so their devices are all unambiguously theirs and the profile assembled by advertisers is likely cohesive across platforms. Two days ago they said they've been getting a lot more ads about prescription vaginal creams lately. This wasn't happening a week ago. There is reason to expect that someone with access to their medical history would segment them as a likely…

As a man, I had ads about custom fit bras follow me around the internet for awhile. This had nothing to do with my medical records. I read an article about a related company. Sorry, getting ads about medical products is not evidence that the advertising platform has your medical records.

Facebook has been giving me ads for a quit smoking drug for a month or two. (Chantrix? Shows how well the ad worked. I remember there's a picture of a cold turkey.) I don't smoke now, and I've never smoked regularly. Machine learning!
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