Tag: data privacy

Medicine doctor and stethoscope in hand touching icon medical network connection with modern virtual screen interface, medical technology network concept

Insufficient Protections for Health Data Privacy: Lessons from Dinerstein v. Google

Jenna Becker Leave a comment

By Jenna Becker

A data privacy lawsuit against the University of Chicago Medical Center and Google was recently dismissed, demonstrating the difficulty of pursuing claims against hospitals that share patient data with tech companies.

Patient data sharing between health systems and large software companies is becoming increasingly common as these organizations chase the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning in healthcare. However, many tech firms also own troves of consumer data, and these companies may be able to match up “de-identified” patient records with a patient’s identity.

Scholars, privacy advocates, and lawmakers have argued that HIPAA is inadequate in the current landscape. Dinerstein v. Google is a clear reminder that both HIPAA and contract law are insufficient for handling these types of privacy violations. Patients are left seemingly defenseless against their most personal information being shared without their meaningful consent.

Read More

Picture of doctor neck down using an ipad with digital health graphics superimposed

Is Data Sharing Caring Enough About Patient Privacy? Part II: Potential Impact on US Data Sharing Regulations

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

A recent US lawsuit highlights crucial challenges at the interface of data utility, patient privacy & data misuse

By Timo Minssen (CeBIL, UCPH), Sara Gerke & Carmel Shachar

Earlier, we discussed the new suit filed against Google, the University of Chicago (UC), and UChicago Medicine, focusing on the disclosure of patient data from UC to Google. This piece goes beyond the background to consider the potential impact of this lawsuit, in the U.S., as well as placing the lawsuit in the context of other trends in data privacy and security.

Read More

Image of binary and dna

Is Data Sharing Caring Enough About Patient Privacy? Part I: The Background

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Timo Minssen (CeBIL, UCPH), Sara Gerke & Carmel Shachar

A recent US lawsuit highlights crucial challenges at the interface of data utility, patient privacy & data misuse

The huge prospects of artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML), as well as the increasing trend toward public-private partnerships in biomedical innovation, stress the importance of an effective governance and regulation of data sharing in the health and life sciences. Cutting-edge biomedical research strongly demands high-quality data to ensure safe and effective health products. It is often argued that greater access to individual patient data collections stored in hospitals’ medical records systems may considerably advance medical science and improve patient care. However, as public and private actors attempt to gain access to such high-quality data to train their advanced algorithms, a number of sensitive ethical and legal aspects also need to be carefully considered. Besides giving rise to safety, antitrust, trade secrets, and intellectual property issues, such practices have resulted in serious concerns with regard to patient privacy, confidentiality, and the commitments made to patients via appropriate informed consent processes.

Read More

Graphical image of a genetic screen merging with algorithmic code

Do You Own Your Genetic Test Results? What About Your Temperature?

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Jorge L. Contreras

The popular direct-to-consumer genetic testing site AncestryDNA claims that “You always maintain ownership of your data.” But is this true?  And, if so, what does it mean?

For more than a century, US law has held that data – objective information and facts – cannot be owned as property. Nevertheless, in recent years there have been increasing calls to recognize property interests in individual health information. Inspired by high profile data breaches and skullduggery by Facebook and others, as well as ever more frequent stories of academic research misconduct and pharmaceutical industry profiteering, many bioethicists and patient advocates, seeking to bolster personal privacy and autonomy, have argued that property rights should be recognized in health data. In addition, a new crop of would-be data intermediaries (e.g., Nebula Genomics, Genos, Invitae, LunaDNA and Hu.manity.org) has made further calls to propertize health data, presumably to profit from acting as the go-betweens in what has been estimated to be a $60-$100 billion global market in health data. Read More