Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/25/our-public-health-data-is-bein.html
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It should always require my opt-in for my medical data to change hands from my physician or healthcare professional.
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Public health data is not the same as private medical data. Is this article conflating the two?
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Why is this a surprise? The US is turning into something that only benefits the corporations and the rich assholes who run them.
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This is an issue also with genetic ancestry testing companies (ie, 23&Me), who now have FDA permission to be in the dna health-related side of your dna, with them constantly asking you to take surveys about your physical and mental health when they already have your dna and which they can then profitize those correlations and data, although they make it sound very innocent. Of course there can be public benefit from this data, but that’s not the part I am concerned about.
Aside from them farming us (you pay for it) and harvesting the health data results for profit (you volunteer the health info for free), the data/info is also ripe for exploitation by current or future wayward gov’t villains. I don’t trust the whole arraignment.
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Agreed, 1000%.
Even smart people whose opinions I usually trust are more than ready to spit a bunch of saliva in a test tube and send it off to Cheap-o DNA Sequencing Service Packaged As Super Cool Fun Interesting Take a Look at Your Ancestry Co. I wish I could ditch my cold foreboding skepticism. Truly I do. Your update (much appreciated!) telling us about surveys etc. from these companies recommits me even more to my skepticism.
These companies strike me as the Facebooks of The Future, with your own freakin’ adenine cytosine guanine thymine as info you no longer have sole custody of—how much more basic a unit of personal data can be had? What you look like at the atomic level?
And is that how the Star Trek transporters work?
Heh.
You probably mean you don’t trust the whole arrangement but I like the “arraignment” angle too:
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Well. For wealthy folk anyway.
Hm, eDNA is a thing, though. If you’re alive, your DNA is already out there. And it’s not exactly anonymized as such.
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But is it a dumpster fire?
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