Category: Privacy

Bogota, Colombia.

General Quarantine, Social Emergency, and Economic Crisis: COVID-19 in Colombia

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Isabel C. Jaramillo Sierra

The first case of COVID-19 diagnosed in Colombia was declared on March 6th. The first COVID-19-related death occurred on March 16.

Between the first known case and the first death in Colombia, the government took action to stop the spread of the disease. All of these decisions, insofar as they are considered part of ordinary police powers, will be reviewed by the State Council as to their legality. The State Council has decided to review 400 administrative acts that it has identified as related to the emergency.

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Royal Palace of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.

COVID-19 and the State of Alarm vis-à-vis Human Rights in Spain

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Dorothy Estrada-Tanck

As of May 20, 2020, Spain had the second highest per capita rate of COVID-19 deaths in the world, with 59.5 deaths per 100,000.

In response to the coronavirus crisis, Spain declared a state of alarm on 14 March 2020, which lasted for fifteen days. It did so through “Royal Decree 463/2020, declaring a state of alarm to manage the health crisis caused by COVID-19,” adopted by left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Council of Ministers in the executive branch of government and signed by King Philip VI. The state of alarm has been prolonged through Royal Decrees five times to last until June 7th.

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German Bundestag.

Germany’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

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By Sara Gerke

Many countries are looking these days to Germany’s approach to combating COVID-19. Although Germany initially experienced a high case rate, the country has been able to slow the spread of the virus and appears to have the situation better “under control” than other countries.

There may be various reasons for Germany’s successful handling of the pandemic so far, ranging from early testing for COVID-19 to high public outreach and transparency to increasing the number of ICU beds and ventilators.

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Cartoon of contact tracing for COVID-19.

Community Organizations Can Reduce the Privacy Impacts of Surveillance During COVID-19

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By Adrian Gropper

Until scientists discover a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19, our economy and our privacy will be at the mercy of imperfect technology used to manage the pandemic response.

Contact tracing, symptom capture and immunity assessment are essential tools for pandemic response, which can benefit from appropriate technology. However, the effectiveness of these tools is constrained by the privacy concerns inherent in mass surveillance. Lack of trust diminishes voluntary participation. Coerced surveillance can lead to hiding and to the injection of false information.

But it’s not a zero-sum game. The introduction of local community organizations as trusted intermediaries can improve participation, promote trust, and reduce the privacy impact of health and social surveillance.

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Crowd of small symbolic 3d figures linked by lines

Why ‘Mandatory Privacy-Preserving Digital Contact Tracing’ is the Ethical Measure Against COVID-19

Cansu Canca Leave a comment

Cross-posted from Medium, where it originally appeared on April 10, 2020. 

By Cansu Canca

Thanks to privacy-by-design technology, population-wide mandatory use of digital contact tracing apps (DCT) can be both more efficient and more respectful of privacy than conventional manual contact tracing, and considerably less intrusive than current lockdowns. Even if counterintuitive, mandatory private-by-design DCT is therefore the only ethical option for fighting COVID-19.

Click here to read the full post on Medium.

(image via higyou / Shutterstock.com)

Photograph of a doctor in blue scrubs overlaid with an illustration of a padlock

Anonymity in the Time of a Pandemic: Privacy vs. Transparency

Cansu Canca Leave a comment

By Cansu Canca

As coronavirus cases increase worldwide, institutions keep their communities informed with frequent updates—but only up to a point. They share minimal information such as number of cases, but omit the names of individuals and identifying information.

Many institutions are legally obligated to protect individual privacy, but is this prohibition of transparency ethically justified?

Some even go a step further and ask you, an individual in a community, to choose privacy over transparency as well. Harvard—alongside with  Yale, Chicago, and Northwestern—requests you to “Please Respect Individuals’ Privacy. Anonymity for these individuals remains paramount. Please respect their privacy—even if you believe you know who they are—so they can focus completely on their health” (emphasis in original).

But do you have an ethical obligation to do so at the time of a pandemic?

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phone camera

More perils of U.S. sectoral privacy law

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By Leslie Francis

A recent unpublished decision of the Minnesota Court of Appeals brings the perils of sectoral privacy law into sharp focus: Furlow v. Madonna Summit of Byron, 2020 WL 413356 (Minn. App. 2020) (unpublished).  Minnesota protects patient health records but not, apparently, photographs of patients posted on social media by health care facility staff.

V.F. was a patient at Madonna Summit of Byron, a senior living facility with independent living, assisted living, and memory care units. Jane Doe was a nursing assistant at Madonna. After V.F. pulled a fire alarm, annoying Jane, Jane snapped a photograph of V.F. and posted it on her personal social media page.  Jane captioned the photo: “This little sh-t just pulled the fire alarm and now I have to call 911!!! Woohoo.” The photo contained no further identifying information.  It didn’t name V.F., say where she lived, or identify Jane Doe or where she worked. It was, however posted on Jane Doe’s personal account, thus identifying Jane Doe to those with access to her account. V.F.’s personal representative sued for damages under the Minnesota Health Records Act. The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld dismissal of the complaint, concluding that the social media post was not release of a “health record” under Minnesota law. Read More

A frustrated woman sits at her desk, staring at her computer. Her head is resting in her hand

Patient-Directed Uses vs. The Platform

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By Adrian Gropper, MD

This post originally appeared on The Health Care Blog.

This piece is part of the series “The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Sharing? Privacy? Both?” which explores whether it’s possible to advance interoperability while maintaining privacy. Check out other pieces in the series here.

It’s 2023. Alice, a patient at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin, decides to get a second opinion at Mayo Clinic. She’s heard great things about Mayo’s collaboration with Google that everyone calls “The Platform”. Alice is worried, and hoping Mayo’s version of Dr. Google says something more than Ascension’s version of Dr. Google. Is her Ascension doctor also using The Platform?

Alice makes an appointment in the breast cancer practice using the Mayo patient portal. Mayo asks permission to access her health records. Alice is offered two choices, one uses HIPAA without her consent and the other is under her control. Her choice is: Read More

Illustration of a man and a woman standing in front of a DNA helix

The End of Privacy?

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Rachele Hendricks-Sturrup

“Any idea we had about privacy is over,” says Dr. Julia Creet, leading international scholar in Cultural Memory Studies, Professor of English at York University, and author of the upcoming book, The Genealogical Sublime. In 2017, Dr. Creet received a York Research Leader Award in part for her investigative work and documentary entitled, “Data Mining the Deceased: Ancestry and the Business of Family,” which received critical acclaim and is streaming on demand in the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Dr. Creet also received a York President’s Research Impact Award in 2019 for her research on digital privacy, data mining, genealogy, and memory.

Dr. Creet’s work builds on Bill of Health’s key ethical and legal discussions around the direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing and health data privacy. Dr. Rachele Hendricks-Sturrup, genetics and privacy scholar and research fellow at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and health policy counsel at the Future of Privacy Forum, recently sat down with Dr. Creet to discuss emerging issues and concerns about genetic privacy (or a perceived lack thereof) in an increasing information and genealogical age. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

 

Dr. Rachele Hendricks-Sturrup: Regarding genealogical recording in the era on increasing DTC genetic testing, you’ve mentioned in your upcoming book, “Any idea we had about privacy is over.” Tell us a little more about your thoughts here. Read More