First, Do No Harm: Can Privacy and Advanced Information Technology Coexist?

摘要

Advances in networking and database technology have brought vast amounts of data together, and as search and querying technology improves, these vast stores of data become increasingly meaningful to even the casual user. In the right hands, such networked data and content can be invaluable―the doctor who needs vital patient records, the security analyst who wants to glean some intelligence from financial records. But for all its potential good use, the same data has great potential for misuse―either inadvertent or intentional. Mishaps have already happened and, while policies are in places (and new ones are soon to be implemented), the risk remains. Perhaps the real question then is to ask whether technology to preserve privacy can advance as quickly as the technology that seems to be putting privacy at risk. In late December 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense reported that its efforts to computerize the medical records of military personnel were set back when hard drives containing the records of a half-million personnel were stolen. The records included names, social security numbers, and medical claims histories. According to the Associated Press, the Defense Department had seen the new computerized system "as a potential 'data gold mine' for military physicians and other healthcare professionals that will provide quick and easy access to military patient records worldwide."