HIPAA’s Broken Promise

September 14, 2009 · Filed Under policy issues · 21 Comments

If you hate HIPAA, it’s your lucky day. Paul Ohm is handing you ammunition in his article, “Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization.” His argument: our current information privacy structure is a house built on sand.

“Computer scientists…have demonstrated they can often ‘reidentify’ or ‘deanonymize’ individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease.”

Ohm’s article describes HIPAA, in particular, as a fig leaf – or worse, as kudzu choking off the free flow of information:

“[I]t is hard to imagine another privacy problem with such starkly presented benefits and costs. On the one hand, when medical researchers can freely trade information, they can develop treatments to ease human suffering and save lives. On the other hand, our medical secrets are among the most sensitive we hold.”

Indeed, one might reformulate that statement:

When e-patients can freely trade information (with fellow patients, with family members, with health professionals…), they can track symptoms, treatments, and outcomes that would otherwise go unobserved.

That’s the hope and the promise of participatory medicine. Yet there is a danger to all that health data floating around. Read more

Tags: Anonymization, Broken Promise, Broken Promises, Computer Scientists, Current Information, data, Fellow Patients, Fig Leaf, Free Flow, Glass Houses, Health Data, Health Information Technology, Health Professionals, Hipaa, Human Suffering, Information Privacy, Lucky Day, Medical Researchers, Medical Secrets, Mermaids, Ohm, Paul Ohm, Privacy Problem, Unicorns