As technology grows, more Americans are becoming alarmed by the fact
that
in the digital age, many of them are losing their privacy and anonymity.
In Missouri, for instance, a new study has been commissioned to test
the effectiveness so-called medical “smart cards.” The cards, which
contain microchip technology and resemble ordinary credit cards, will be
given to about 250 pregnant women, and officials hope that the new cards
will make it easier for doctors to access a patient’s most recent
medical records, regardless of where a patient may seek treatment.
The patient’s information will be stored in a central data collection
point, and will also be accessible via the Internet using
patient-specific codes,
according to Dr. Gilad A. Gross of Washington University School of
Medicine
and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.
Dr. Gross presented preliminary data on the cards last week at the
annual
meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in San Francisco,
California.
The idea, say researchers, is to provide physicians with the
capability to
store a patient’s medical records in a location that can be updated
easily
and accessed from any medical facility in the country or, for that
matter,
the world. Every time a patient attends for a visit, new information
will
be added to his or her records. Critics say such a system will ensure
that even the most intimate information will be accessible to anyone who
is able to access the central data processing and collection site.
Thus far, Dr. Gross and his colleagues have enrolled about 70 women
who
plan to deliver at Barnes-Jewish Hospital where the Smart Card computer
database is already installed.
Once all patients have been enrolled in the study, half of them will
be
given a smart card while the remaining patients will serve as “control”
subjects, with their medical records accessed by traditional means. All
of
the patients will receive the same level of medical care at the same
facility.
Dr. Gross’ team hopes to complete this pilot study in about three
months.
In the meantime, some privacy experts say programs like the
Barnes-Jewish
medical study and others, such as digital driver license requirements,
increase the likelihood that Americans will lose the ability to keep
ample
portions of their lives to themselves. And that, they say, outweighs the
benefits such new technologies may provide.
Patrick Poole, a noted privacy advocate who teaches college courses
in
Tennessee, told WorldNetDaily that the medical smart card technology
parallels other such technology that also violates privacy rights.
“The new ‘know your customer’ banking regulations come to my mind,”
Poole
said. Those regulations, he explained, require banking institutions to
profile customers and report any “unusual” financial transactions to the
federal government.
Additionally, “new digital driver’s license technology has already
been
abused,” Poole said. “That may just be our glimpse of the future.”
He said that personal information stored on digital driver’s licenses
is
already being sold to private corporations, who then sell it to retail
companies under the guise of preventing fraud.
“In Oregon, all the driver license information was sold to a company
for
just $200” and then promptly posted on the Internet, he said. “With that
kind of access, it’s like one-stop-shopping for stalkers” and other
people who may have other criminal intentions.
In the past several months, South Carolina has released 3.5 million
digital photographs, Florida has started the process of transferring 14
million images in its files, and other states have expressed interest in
doing the same.
One firm which is purchasing the information is Image Data, LLC, a
small
Nashua, N.H., company that wants to build a national database of photos
and
personal information to help retailers prevent identity theft. Identity
theft is a fast-growing crime in which fraud artists use victims’
personal information to run up bills in their names or empty their bank
accounts.
Image Data computers, set up near cash registers, will have the
ability to
flash a customer’s photo on a small screen so retail clerks can quickly
establish that the buyer is who they say they are.
“The states already require Americans to obtain digital driver
licenses
with certain private information stored on them as part of the 1996
Omnibus
bill,” Poole said, which means that every potential driver in the
country
will eventually have a digital photography which can then be sold to
companies like Image Data.
“What if our medical information is sold to pharmaceutical and
medical
corporations without our permission?” he said. “What’s to prevent it
from
happening?”
With one exception, Congress thus far seems oblivious to the
worsening
privacy problem Americans are experiencing. Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX, has
introduced HR 220, the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act of 1999,
which
will, if passed, make such transfers of private information illegal.
Paul’s bill will “amend title II of the Social Security Act and the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to protect the integrity and
confidentiality of Social Security account numbers issued under such
title,” as well as “prohibit the establishment in the federal government
of any uniform national identifying number, and … prohibit Federal
agencies from imposing standards for identification of individuals on
other agencies or persons.”
Paul’s bill also specifically mandates that the federal government
may not
require federal, state or private agencies or firms to establish an
identification system of any kind for the purposes of “investigating,
monitoring, overseeing, or otherwise regulating a transaction to which
the
federal government is not a party.”
Israel isn’t listening to Biden – thankfully
Victor Joecks