Hot Topics: Privacy

Blog Posts (35)

June 14, 2017

Trump Opioid Task Force Considers HIPAA Exception for Overdoses

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Confidentiality is one of the sacrosanct principles of medicine. By keeping the secrets that patients share with health care providers, the patient trusts the provider and the provider has the information necessary to diagnose and treat.…

May 31, 2017

Time to Secure Your Implantable Medical Devices from Hackers

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

In the last few weeks, a major malware attack (WannaCry) paralyzed computers around the world, including electronic health records at the UK’s National Health Service and at hospitals throughout the world.…

April 25, 2017

Genetic Fingerprints and National Security

by Beau P. Sperry, Megan Allyse & Richard R. Sharp

Biometric surveillance is rapidly becoming an integral component of national security policy and practice.…

April 5, 2017

Internet Privacy and Health Portals: Why I Won’t Be Contacting My Doctor Online

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Part of the Affordable Care Act was an effort to increase efficiency in sharing and storing health data through electronic health records.…

February 21, 2017

User Beware: Privacy Settings just a Facade

By Brenda Curtis, Ph.D. Social media platforms continue to improve and refine their privacy settings as the demand for advanced user protections increases. Although enabling catered privacy settings to online profiles allows users to indicate who they would like share personal information with, it does not necessarily protect them from the platforms – i.e. websites … More User Beware: Privacy Settings just a Facade
February 21, 2017

Studying “Friends”: The Ethics of Using Social Media as Research Platforms

by Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Ph.D.

Social media is increasingly creating the contours of many Americans’ daily lives as a medium that is simultaneously intimate and powerfully public.…

January 13, 2017

BioethicsTV: Violating confidentialty, ethical decision-making, unapproved human experimentation

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Chicago Med (Season 2; Episode 10): In this episode a heart patient returns from a previous episode when a heart is found for a transplant.…

October 28, 2016

BIOETHICS TV 10/27 – Modern miracles, body hacking, and sex trafficking

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Pure Genius (Seasons 1, Episode 1)

This new TV show might be the ethicists worst nightmare. The show opens with Dr.…

September 14, 2016

Pregnancy, stigma, and moral responsibility in the Zika epidemic

by Kelly McBride Folkers, BS

Pregnancy comes with great moral responsibility from mother to future child. A healthy pregnancy requires that pregnant women abstain from certain behaviors, like eating unpasteurized foods and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol.…

March 30, 2016

BIOETHICSTV: Chicago Med 3/29

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

BioethicsTV is an occasional bioethics.net feature where we examine bioethical issues raised in televised medical dramas.

Tonight marked the mid-season premiere of Chicago Med, a freshman television show that seems to relish throwing professional and bioethical issues at its audience.…

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Published Articles (8)

AJOB Primary Research: Volume 8 Issue 2 - Apr 2017

When bins blur: Patient perspectives on categories of results from clinical whole genome sequencing Leila Jamal, Jill O. Robinson, Kurt D. Christensen, Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Melody J. Slashinski, Denise Lautenbach Perry, Jason L. Vassy, Julia Wycliff, Robert C. Green & Amy L. McGuire

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 17 Issue 5 - May 2017

Ethical Issues in Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Practice Yonghui Ma, Jiayu Liu, Catherine Rhodes, Yongzhan Nie & Faming Zhang

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 17 Issue 5 - May 2017

Ethics, Refugees, and the President's Executive Order Nancy E. Kass

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 17 Issue 5 - May 2017

Genetic Fingerprints and National Security Beau P. Sperry, Megan Allyse & Richard R. Sharp

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 17 Issue 1 - Jan 2017

Tracking U.S. Professional Athletes: The Ethics of Biometric Technologies Katrina Karkazis & Jennifer R. Fishman

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 15 Issue 11 - Nov 2015

Ingestible Drug Adherence Monitors: Trending Toward a Surveillance Society? Richard R. Sharp

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 14 Issue 10 - Oct 2014

Case Study:The Obligations to Report Statutory Sexual Abuse Disclosed in a Research Study Holly A. Taylor, Ellen Kuwana & Benjamin S. Wilfond

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 13 Issue 10 - Oct 2013

Why Misconduct Trumps Patient–Therapist Confidentiality and Ways to Avoid the Disclosure Dilemma Nicholas H. Steneck

News (181)

June 21, 2017 9:00 am

China cracks down on fake peer reviews (Nature)

The Chinese government is going on the offensive against scientists who dupe journals by creating fraudulent reviews of submitted papers. A coalition of agencies led by the science ministry announced on 14 June that the government would suspend the grants of researchers involved in such fraud, which surfaced earlier this year when a cancer journal retracted 107 research papers from Chinese authors. And funding agencies in China promised to increase policing of the scientific community to prevent similar deceptions.

October 31, 2016 8:00 am

The controversial DNA search that helped nab the 'Grim Sleeper' is winning over skeptics (LA Times)

The “Roaming Rapist” is one of a handful of cases that California authorities have quietly solved in recent years using a controversial technique that scours an offender DNA database for a father, son or brother of an elusive crime suspect.

August 17, 2016 8:00 am

Spiking genomic databases with misinformation could protect patient privacy (Nature)

Large genomic databases are indispensable for scientists looking for genetic variations associated with diseases. But they come with privacy risks for people who contribute their DNA. A 2013 study1 showed that hackers could use publicly available information on the Internet to identify people from their anonymized genomic data.

May 12, 2016 8:14 am

For cholesterol study volunteer, an unsettling discovery in a Science paper: herself (Science)

When I first meet Rita Woidislawsky at La Colombe, her favorite coffee shop steps from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s upscale Rittenhouse Square, she’s effusive and bracingly direct—hugging patrons she knows, waving to baristas, and quickly finding the one table that’s about to free up. She’s dressed in workout clothes and delights in looking younger than her 68 years, with curly hair and an Israeli accent that’s lingered since she emigrated in her late teens.

April 22, 2016 9:52 am

New York Hospital to Pay $2.2 Million Over Unauthorized Filming of 2 Patients

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has agreed to pay a $2.2 million penalty to federal regulators for allowing television crews to film two patients without their consent — one who was dying, the other in significant distress. Regulators said on Thursday that the hospital allowed filming to continue even after a medical professional asked that it stop.

February 17, 2016 4:33 pm

Hospital hack reveals digital risk in medical world

A Southern California hospital fell victim to hackers last week — offering a glimpse at one of many digital threats facing health care.

February 8, 2016 4:42 pm

U.S. and Europe in ‘Safe Harbor’ Data Deal, but Legal Fight May Await

European officials on Tuesday agreed to a deal with the United States that would let Google, Amazon and thousands of other businesses continue moving people’s digital data, including social media posts and financial information, back and forth across the Atlantic.

February 4, 2016 7:18 pm

Safe Harbor ripped and replaced with Privacy Shield in last-minute US-Europe deal

“For the first time ever, the United States has given the EU binding assurances that the access of public authorities for national security purposes will be subject to clear limitations, safeguards and oversight mechanisms,” said Europe’s justice commissioner Věra Jourová.

January 27, 2016 7:10 pm

Big Pharma's bet on Big Data creates opportunities and risks

The Swiss drugmaker has teamed up with U.S. technology firm Qualcomm to develop an internet-connected inhaler that can send information about how often it is used to remote computer servers known as the cloud.

January 19, 2016 6:26 pm

Privacy and Information Sharing

Most Americans see privacy issues in commercial settings as contingent and context-dependent. A new Pew Research Center study based on a survey of 461 U.S. adults and nine online focus groups of 80 people finds that there are a variety of circumstances under which many Americans would share personal information or permit surveillance in return for getting something of perceived value.

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