A lawsuit was filed against the tech giant Google and the University of Chicago and its medical center on June 26, 2019, for allegedly wrongful access to patient data. The lawsuit was filed over medical data breach on behalf of a single patient, Matt Dinerstein, but may attract hundreds and even thousands of hospital patients in a class action lawsuit.
About two years ago, the medical center of Chicago University partnered with the tech giant in an ambitious project to find patterns in patients’ medical records for future diagnosis of medical issues. Google was accused of allegedly accessing hospital data without removing potentially identifying information like stamps or physicians’ notes. The University was accused of providing unauthorized access to these data.
“In reality, these records were not sufficiently anonymized and put the patients’ privacy at grave risk” the accusation party claims. However, Google noted it would use “de-identified medical records” from Chicago that would be “stripped of any personally identifiable information.”
It is up to justice to decide the issue although a lot is at stake for Google and Chicago University as more plaintiffs may be attracted to the case.
Ironically enough, the new research aimed at (in Google’s terms) improved patient outcomes, low costly incidents and saved lives is aggressively attacked by personal data privacy advocates. To accomplish its goal, Google needs a wide array of information from hospitals and other medical institutions.
On the other end, “that raises privacy concerns, especially when is used by a company like Google, which already knows what you search for, where you are and what interests you hold,” The New York Times says.
In fact, federal regulation HIPAA , the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, allows medical providers to share medical records as long as the data is “de-identified.”
Think about the 1990s when the idea of surfing endless amounts of information was a hard-to-explain concept for the public at large! Do you realize now how much has changed? As Stacey A. Tovino, professor of health law at the University of Nevada, noted, HIPAA is rather outdated as the idea of what information is considered individually identifiable has changed with advances in technology.
In fact, it is now possible to make living using the Internet, not talk about your bank data and highly confidential information. Here you go! The clash of the old and the new! The challenges of the new millennium promise big booms and surprises! Watch out for your data. It’s under modern risks!
