Episode 128 — Medical Information and Privacy

Data Privacy Detective

Our personal medical information is sensitive. It becomes digital data shared beyond the medical professional who requests and needs it to provide care. Learn how our medical information is shared and used in ways that create privacy risks many of us do not wish to assume, how tech companies profit from its use, how federal and state law provide rules about medical privacy, and what companies and individuals can do about the subject.

Our guest Jay Barnes is an attorney with the firm of Simmons Hanly Conroy, which represents consumers and local governments in mass tort and class actions. Jay shares insight into how tech companies collect and use personal medical information to generate profits through customized advertising we may or may not wish to receive. He explores how the underlying principle should be that of giving each person the freedom to choose whether individual medical data can be shared with and used by third parties. Tune in for a segment about what businesses should do to comply with law and earn a privacy-centric reputation and what each of us can do to increase the privacy of our medical data.

Time stamps:

00:56 — How is medical data digitized and shared?

05:10 — How do state laws deal with medical data privacy?

10:04 — How can a balance between personal data privacy and public health data be struck?

14:22 — Advice for businesses on how to handle consumer medical data responsibly and safely?

16:16 — Advice for individuals on keeping their medical data secure