Recent studies have shown that seemingly benign, non-medical personal information can in fact be extrapolated into medical data, and therefore, according to health law expert Mason Marks, MD, it should be under the same protections as more explicit health data.
In an op-ed for STAT, Dr. Marks cited one study in which statements posted on Facebook — especially those using religious language or expletives — demonstrated significant links to conditions such as diabetes, psychosis and depression when researchers applied an artificial intelligence algorithm to the post. Dr. Marks labeled this information, which seems innocuous but can be unexpectedly translated into health information, "emergent medical data."
Tech companies, he explained, already make a habit of mining for this data: Facebook to identify suicide risk and Google to detect undiagnosed dementia, influenza and other conditions via smart home devices, for example.
"Mining for emergent medical data circumvents centuries of well-established social norms and creates new opportunities for discrimination and oppression," Dr. Marks wrote. "Consumers can do little to protect themselves other than staying off the grid…Unless we do something soon to counteract this trend, we risk permanently discarding centuries of health privacy norms. Instead of healing people, emergent medical data will be used to control and exploit them."
He concluded, "Just as we prohibit tech companies from spying on our health records, we must prevent them from mining our emergent medical data."
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