Liberal Free Chat Zone

[basserdan]

So About Your Medical Records (Again)

by Karl Denninger
2015-03-25 06:15

I have repeatedly warned, going back to before Obamacare was passed, that "electronic" medical records are dangerous. They're dangerous not only to your wallet, because they give all sorts of commercial interests access to data that is none of their damn business but can be (and will be) used to disadvantage you (and that's perfectly legal, as the law stands right now) but in addition the privacy implications when (not if) breaches of security occur are extraordinarily severe.

In point of fact your medical records should be yours -- not your doctor's, not the hospital's and not the insurance company's. Yours, period, end of discussion.

That means you possess them. You choose who has access to them, why, and for how long. You have the right to not only revoke that permission but insist on their destruction and certification of same, with strong criminal and civil penalties for violations.

But you insisted on none of this, America, and now we have another 11 million Americans with stolen medical records ( http://tinyurl.com/q48q9gt ) (after roughly 80 million just recently from Anthem) which means that roughly one American in three has had their personal data stolen -- and not just identification information either as some of the data taken involved medical history.

This attack apparently disclosed names, social security numbers, medical information and bank account numbers.

There is utterly no reason for you to allow this, America. There is no reason for anyone to have your medical records but you, with the exception of your physician and others providing treatment during the time they are doing so.

Yes, I recognize that there are serious technological concerns with this demand. But we live in a world where 32Gb MicroSD cards are smaller than a dime yet cost just a few dollars, while strong data encryption also exists and costs nothing, making securing the data on such card a trivial undertaking. There is utterly no reason that we cannot design and implement a system in which these files are encapsulated with a multi-key encryption scheme that allows you, and you alone, to issue and revoke keys to providers as you alone determine, while leaving you, and only you, with final control of that data store.

When will you wake up, America?

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229948