There's an enormous amount of personal health information people now feed or tap into digital monitors, health apps, search engines and other online tools. If the same information were provided in your doctor's office, your privacy would be safeguarded. But that's not how the digitized health world works.
Instead, we have an ecosystem of abuse in which health technology companies operate largely outside the law that requires doctors and other medical personnel, hospitals and insurers to protect an individual's health information.
That means technology companies can — and do — dig your digital data for clues about your health status, accessing information like prescriptions you have purchased and other health services you might have sought, and potentially link this information to your name, address, email address and other personally identifying information. The data can then be used by platforms including Facebook and Google to help advertisers target promotions or other communications to you.
It's a gaping hole in health privacy protections that comes from the privacy law, which protects interactions between patients, medical professionals and insurers but does not, in most cases, protect patient health data that is recorded on new technologies.
Closing the patient privacy gap can- and should -be a priority for lawmakers The consequences of digital exposure for those seeking reproductive services have drawn significant concern and attention. These worries are reasonable. But reproductive care is only one area of health services where private patient information is digitally disclosed.
Therefore, lawmakers must take action to protect the privacy of people who are now online for all manners of personal, professional and other reasons. Until then, a narrowly targeted approach that protects health privacy may be politically easier to come into effect. The explosion of digital health technology and the dramatic increase in its use in the past few years require it greatly.
