Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Massachusettes is leading a coalition that will spend about $50 million that will allow for the creation of a medical records system in three communities. This will cover about 2,000 physicians, hospitals, pharmacies, and potentially nursing homes and community health centers. The goal is to reduce the number of medical errors by allowing physicians to log into a central database containing all of a patients medical records. This is an alternative to keeping patient records on paper in filing cabinets.

With any new advance in technology and information sharing where the data has such a high level of sensitivity attached to it, privacy concerns are abundant. First, I am skeptical of the system when the primary investors are insurance companies. It seems that the insurance companies have a vested interest in consolidating all of a patients records into one location. Personally, and as a researcher, this concerns me because I don’t think that insurance companies should have access to such a database. Although I don’t see where it is explicitly stated that they would have access to the database, it seems very possible that this is one of their goals. Additionally, I am concerned about so many people having such easy and transparent access to my data. The possibility of pharmacist or nurse looking up a neighbor or potential boyfriend in the database seems all too likely.

The adoption of such a system can undoubtedly bring forth advances in medical treatment and research, but at what cost to personal privacy? I urge everyone to consider the value of their medical history and the medical history of their friends, family, and community as an alternative to blindly accepting this new system.

Read more about the medical records database here.

Google has recently released a new desktop search tool that allows you to search your hard drive for information in the same way as you use Google to search information on the web. This is an exciting new technology and brings more convenience to end users. But, be careful about the privacy conerns with this new tool. The general public often get exicited about new technologies and hurry to try them out without realizing the implications. Educate yourself before you install the tool on your machine.

CNN has an article saying users could unwittingly let others see sensitive information. According to Richard Smith, a privacy-and-security consultant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “Google Desktop is a great organizer for finding information on your hard drive. But it’s really a spying program. If it’s installed on your computer and somebody else starts poking around, they can learn a lot about you.”

If you are sharing a computer with someone, you’d better be very careful about what information should be stored on your computer. For example, do you use an e-mail client that saves messages in local hard drive? Do you regularly visit some websites that you don’t want others to know? (Because your browser automatically saves the visited pages for a while in the cache, you’d better clear the browsing history and location bar history every time after use.) Do you store other sensitive information on the computer such as banking account, credit card numbers, usename/passwords? With google’s new tool, it would be very easy for other users of the computer to find this kind of information on the hard drive. Read more about privacy and desktop search.